Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — BECHUANALAND

Legislative Council

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations when it is his intention to establish a Legislative Council for Bechuanaland Protectorate.

The Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. C. J. M. Alport): I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) on 20th March.

Mr. Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a very provocative speech was made by the South African Minister of Defence, Mr. Erasmus, on 28th March in which he said that the Protectorates of Bechuanaland, Swaziland and Basutoland should be incorporated in the Legislature in the Union? In view of this, would not it be a good thing if Her Majesty's Government were to make a statement on the constitutional future of the Protectorates, particularly Bechuanaland, and about the evolution of the Legislative Council to the full establishment of self-government?

Mr. Alport: As I have explained on previous occasions, it is the object of Her Majesty's Government to start the building of representative institutions on a local basis. The Government's view on the future of the Protectorates has been set out very clearly on a number of occasions.

Mr. Wall: Can my hon. Friend go so far as to say that as the district councils prove themselves successful in all districts, a nucleus for a Legislative Council will become available so that it will be able to start functioning?

Mr. Alport: We are anxious to make a success of the limited experiment which is being undertaken at present, and it is important that we should await the outcome of that experiment.

Mr. J. Griffiths: While appreciating what the Under-Secretary says, may I ask whether he agrees that it is desirable, having regard to the situation in the Protectorates, for us to make clear that it is our desire that they should proceed as other Colonies do towards the establishment of a Legislative Council and self-government? Will the hon. Gentleman make a firm declaration that that is the view of Her Majesty's Government and, indeed, of the whole British nation?

Mr. Alport: We are most anxious to see continued progress in these Protectorates. We are anxious, as I say, to ensure that any political progress is based soundly upon local institutions and we wish to concentrate particularly upon the economic development of these Protectorates.

Agricultural Training Scheme

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, what steps he is taking to expand the facilities for agricultural education in the Bechuanaland Protectorate.

Mr. Alport: It is proposed to operate an agricultural training scheme as an adjunct of a trades school in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, when it is established. The present demand for agricultural education does not justify the provision of special training facilities.

Mr. Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that too often in the Colonies there has been an academic bias in our schools, particularly in the mission schools? We are turning out too many clerks and pen-pushers, and yet this is a Protectorate with basically a cattle and farming economy. Leaders like Tshekedi Khama want more extensive schemes of agricultural education. Would not it be a good thing to meet them in this matter and spend more money and give more technical help in promoting such schemes?

Mr. Alport: I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman on the importance of improving standards of technical training in agriculture and particularly in the cattle


industry in the Protectorate. The minimum qualification for agricultural training is the possession of the junior certificate. There are about 46 passes at this standard each year, but none up to the present has shown himself to be particularly interested in agricultural training, although Southern Rhodesia is prepared to accept two or three qualified students for a matriculation course with an agricultural bias. However, I can assure the House that we attach great importance to this aspect of technical training within the Protectorate because its future depends largely upon the standards of agricultural efficiency in its major industry.

British African Leaders (Visits to Mafeking)

Mr. J. Johnson: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations how many official visits were paid to Mafeking by British African leaders from the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1957; and how many Protectorate Africans were involved.

Mr. Alport: Official visits were paid to Mafeking on four occasions by leading Africans from the Bechuanaland Protectorate in 1957. Fifteen Africans were involved.

Mr. Johnson: Can the hon. Gentleman confirm that it is only since July last year that leaders like Tshekedi Khama and others have needed official passes to leave their territory and go to the Mafeking capital on the South African side? Does not he think that this is objectionable, as Tshekedi Khama and other Africans do? In view of the atmosphere within and without the Union of South Africa, does not he think that this is a most unlikely way to steady African opinion, particularly in the light of what I said earlier about the comments of Mr. Erasmus?

Mr. Alport: If the hon. Gentleman wants the dates and full details in regard to this particular matter, perhaps he will be kind enough to put down a Question. I assure him that a large number of private visits to Mafeking have been paid by leading Africans during the past year, in addition to the official visits to which I particularly referred. I am not aware that it is causing hardship at the present time.

Bushmen (Native Labour Proclamation)

Miss Vickers: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, in the case of recruitment of the bushmen of Western Bechuanaland carried out within the terms of the Native Labour Proclamation of 1941, how far the terms of the labour contracts, particularly as regards repatriation of the workers to their homes and the payment of allotments from wages to the workers' families, where this is part of the contract, are being enforced.

Mr. Alport: No recruitment of bushmen for any purpose is at present permitted by licence under the Bechuanaland Protectorate Native Labour Proclamation. The enforcement of the terms of labour contracts, therefore, does not arise.

Miss Vickers: Does my hon. Friend realise that many farmers in South-West Africa are recruiting these people and then keeping them in slave conditions, not allowing them to return to their families? Is not it a fact that one bushman recently escaped back to the Protectorate from South-West Africa, and a native policeman arrested him and handed him back to his employer in South-West Africa? Does my hon. Friend think that this is satisfactory? Further, has he any intention of going out to the Protectorate in the near future to see things for himself?

Mr. Alport: I answered a Question last week with regard to certain allegations made about the recruitment in the Protectorate of bushmen for labour purposes. I have made it clear again this week that there is no recruitment of bushmen for any purposes permitted under licence, and we should take the strongest action possible against any infringement of the Native Labour Proclamation. We have established recently a new police post on the border, which we hope may stamp out any abuses which may exist. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the position of bushmen in the Protectorate presents a most interesting but difficult administrative and anthropological problem. We hope to be able to undertake an intensification of its study as a result of the initiative of the High Commissioner, with


the help of a grant from C.D. and W. From my own point of view, when I go out there, as I hope to do shortly, this is one of the matters I shall be particularly interested in.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The House will be glad to hear the hon. Gentleman's assurances; but Questions are continually put about these matters in the House. While he is out there, will he take the opportunity to make strong representations to the South African Government that, if they in any way condone this, perhaps, illegal recruitment, we shall take a very strong view about it in this country?

Mr. Alport: I shall do my best to find out the facts for myself when I visit the place.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

Commonwealth Trade Conference

Mr. G. R. Howard: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations whether he will include in the agenda for the Commonwealth Trade Conference next autumn the proposed setting up of a Commonwealth Development Bank.

Mr. Alport: Commonwealth officials meeting in London in February made provisional recommendations at to what the agenda might cover. These recommendations are now under consideration by Commonwealth Governments, and I am not able to say what items the agenda will eventually contain.

Mr. Howard: Can my hon. Friend say whether or not he thinks that this is a good idea? I do not ask him to say whether it is possible at this stage to say that it shall be included in the agenda, but, in view of recent events in Canada, is this not a very important matter?

Mr. Alport: I think that all new thinking upon Commonwealth economic relations is of great value at the present time. This is one subject which has been discussed a number of times recently both in the House and in public, and my hon. Friend can be assured that the Government are fully conscious of the interest of the House in a proposition of this sort.

Mr. P. Williams: Does my hon. Friend realise that new thinking, although valuable, is of no value at all unless it makes

an impact upon the Government, and that unless a more forthcoming attitude is shown on the question of further finance for Commonwealth development, having new thinking will be of no value at all?

Mr. Alport: The Government are quite capable of undertaking new thinking themselves. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are well aware of the very sincere views held on these particular matters in all parts of the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — FEDERATION OF RHODESIA

Immunities and Privileges Act, 1956

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what action he intends to take in regard to the Orders under the Immunities and Privileges Act of the Federation of Rhodesia, which need to be passed in consultation with Her Majesty's Government before the Act can be implemented.

Mr. Alport: None, Sir. The making of the Orders necessary to implement the Immunities and Privileges Act, 1956, of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is a matter for the Government of the Federation, though the United Kingdom Government were asked for, and have given, specialist advice on certain technical aspects of the preparation of the Orders.

Mr. Stonehouse: Will the Minister confirm that this Act may fall within the special reserved powers of the Secretary of State, in view of the fact that, as far as Southern Rhodesia is concerned, it is clearly discriminatory against the great majority of the idigenous population? Further, can he say whether the representations from India in respect of this Act have been met?

Mr. Alport: I understand that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Immunities and Privileges Act, which refers to diplomatic representations within the Federation, and I therefore do not think that his assumption is correct.

Mr. H. Hynd: Does the Minister's first reply mean that the relatively better position of the African and Indian population in Nyasaland is in danger from possible Orders issued by the majority in Southern Rhodesia?

Mr. Alport: No, I do not think that this particular legislation is relevant to that at all. This is an Act dealing with the responsibilities of the Federal Government, as I understand it, in relation to the diplomatic problems which it has now assumed as a result of its new status.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Students (Science, Engineering and Craft Subjects)

Mr. Skeffington: asked the Minister of Education if he will now state the number of students who, in 1956–57, took courses in science, engineering and craft subjects, respectively; and if he will give a table showing whether such courses led to university degrees, diplomas, professional qualification, higher national certificates, ordinary national certificates, or City and Guilds certificates.

STUDENTS IN FURTHER EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENTS


Academic Year 1956–1957



Engineering (including craft)
Science



Full-time
Part-time (day)
Full-time
Part-time (day)


University degrees (including Preliminary)
1,594
994
2,145
3,348


National diplomas and National certificates
3,581
83,569
68
16,307


City and Guilds G.C.E.
192
71,131
—
708


G.C.E.
—
—
1,121
2,473


Other examinations (including Dip. Tech., professional and college)
3,605
5,706
813
2,989

Grammar and Secondary Modern Schools

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Education if he will publish in HANSARD the latest figures showing the proportions of children in grammar and secondary modern schools, respectively, in each county and county borough of England and Wales, who are voluntarily staying at school till their sixteenth birthday.

Sir E. Boyle: I regret that information is not available in this precise form.

Mr. Swingler: Would not it be possible for the Minister to obtain this information? Has he not some recent information about the number staying on until 16 over all classes of school, and would not it be possible quite simply to

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): With permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table giving this information.

Mr. Skeffington: I congratulate the Minister on, at last, having the figures. Does not he think that it is desirable to ask for a return from local authorities earlier, because this information is essential if one is to gauge what progress is being made in the new courses for science training generally?

Sir E. Boyle: My right hon. Friend will consider that. I know the hon. Gentleman's concern with these matters. He will be glad to know that the table shows a substantial increase in the number of students taking national diplomas and certificates and City and Guilds courses.

Following is the information:

break those down as between grammar and secondary modern?

Sir E. Boyle: There are certain difficulties about it; I will write to the hon. Gentleman and explain them.

Housecraft Instruction

Mr. Sumner: asked the Minister of Education what schools have been, or are being, provided at the public expense with flats or other similar accommodation for the purpose of instruction in homecraft and not for occupation; and what is the total cost of providing and equipping such accommodation.

Sir E. Boyle: Most post-war secondary schools for girls include a small training "flat" as part of their provision for


teaching housecraft. Six hundred pounds would normally cover the building and equipping of a typical "flat".

Mercers' School

Mrs. L. Jeger: asked the Minister of Education why Mercers' School, Holborn, is not eligible for direct grant-aid; and what proposals he has for making good this loss of 300 school places.

Sir E. Boyle: When the direct-grant list was reopened, my right hon. Friend's predecessor made it clear that he had in mind the admission of only a limited number of schools of a high educational standard. Mercers School did not reach the very high standard set. The boys in the school come from a wide area containing a very large number of schools and there should be no difficulty in placing them.

Mrs. Jeger: Can the Minister say whether Any proposals have been submitted by the school which might enable him to look at the matter again, or must the question now be regarded as closed?

Sir E. Boyle: My right hon. Friend is not in any way responsible for the closing of this school; it was the governors' decision. As a piece of background information, I can say that only ten schools have been admitted to the direct grant list since it was reopened, and these schools have all been of quite exceptional quality.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

Hong Kong (Textile Exports)

Mr. Leavey: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to satisfy himself that no textile cloth or made-up goods, purporting to be manufactured in Hong Kong, originate in China.

The President of the Board of Trade (Sir David Eccles): It has been impossible to obtain concrete evidence of any such evasion. Nonetheless, we are reviewing the procedures to satisfy ourselves that goods purporting to have been manufactured in Hong Kong have, in fact, been manufactured there.

Mr. Leavey: While I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that assurance

and it will be some comfort at least to Lancashire to know that this matter is being further pursued, may I ask him whether he is aware that it is a source of real anxiety? Will he pursue the matter vigorously, having regard to the fact that it is not only a problem of the moment in Lancashire, but almost certainly will be one of the most serious problems we have to face if and when a Free Trade Area comes into being?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, Sir; I will. In the meantime, if my hon. Friend has any evidence, I shall be glad to have it.

Mr. Leavey: asked the President of the Board of Trade the purpose of the Hong Kong visit of the Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Peyton: asked the President of the Board of Trade the reasons for the visit of his Permanent Secretary to Hone Kong; and if, during that visit, consideration may be given to the limitation, on a voluntary basis, of the export of gloves to the United Kingdom.

Sir D. Eccles: It is hoped that further discussions will shortly take place between the Lancashire cotton industry and the cotton industries of India and Pakistan with a view to securing a voluntary limitation of their exports of cotton cloth to the United Kingdom. Sir Frank Lee is in Hong Kong to explore the possibility of voluntary arrangements being made for exports of cotton cloth from the Colony. His discussions cannot he extended to other goods. Cotton presents entirely special problems and it is not the intention of the Government to sponsor similar arrangements in respect of other exports from Hong Kong.

Mr. Leavey: While I know that some comfort was derived from the fact that Sir Frank Lee was invited to go to Hong Kong, may I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that although in Lancashire it is right to say that there has not been widespread unemployment as the result of the difficulties facing us there, we now face extended short-time working, which for the people concerned is just as disagreeable as unemployment, whatever label the Ministry of Labour may attach to it? Will my right hon. Friend try to take a more positive step in this direction, since it seems logical and certainly desirable that the Government should


pursue a line of action which will at least give some hope to the hard-pressed cotton industry?

Sir D. Eccles: I think that the negotiations which Sir Frank Lee is having show that the Government understand the situation and are doing their best to arrive at a voluntary agreement with one of Her Majesty's Colonies.

Mr. Peyton: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the difficult and unhappy time that the glove industry has been having over six years as a result of this steadily and rapidly mounting current of imports from Hong Kong, which is made possible by an almost inexhaustible supply of refugee labour. Is he aware how great the disappointment will be that now that he has decided to investigate and explore the possibilities of doing something for the cotton industry, he has not considered it possible to extend that action to cover the glove industry, which is a small craft industry and has been very hard pressed by this problem? I hope that he will look at it again.

Sir D. Eccles: I am aware of the difficulties of the glove industry, because it has factories in my own constituency. The facts are that the imports from Hong Kong were less last year than the year before and we have not thought it right to extend this kind of arrangement to made-up goods.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is the President of the Board of Trade aware that Sir Frank Lee will have all the good wishes of this side of the House, as well as those of his own side, in these discussions and that I am not speaking only for Lancashire Members in saying that? Is he further aware that some entirely informal discussions held in Hong Kong recently by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Thornton) and myself, arranged by the Chamber of Commerce there, suggested that there was a hopeful possibility of an agreement that would be fair to this country and would also meet the serious and legitimate case of Hong Kong itself?

Sir D. Eccles: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said and, like him, I hope that these negotiations will succeed.

Mr. Peyton: On a point of order. In view of the importance of this matter, I must give notice that I shall raise it on the Adjournment.

Copper Tubes (Strategic Controls)

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will urgently review the operation of the strategic controls on the exports of copper tubes and other copper products, in view of the development of under-employment in important units in the industry.

Sir D. Eccles: All the strategic controls are coming under review in the meetings proceeding in Paris and our policy in this review is to confine these controls to goods which are still of strategic significance.

Mr. Wilson: While trusting that in these talks the right hon. Gentleman will take account both of Britain's economic position and of the changed strategic position which renders many of these controls utterly obsolete, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the Question was based on the fact that in my constituency the biggest copper factory in the Commonwealth is now working short time and that the reason for this is its inability to meet clear orders that are waiting for it from Eastern Europe?

Sir D. Eccles: We are, in fact, licensing copper wire in considerable quantities, but we must wait a little while to see whether other forms of copper manufactures are kept on the list.

Bread

Mrs. Braddock: asked the President of the Board of Trade what action he is taking to deal with the monopoly of bakers, who are keeping the price of bread high, and obstructing those who are prepared to manufacture and supply bread at a much cheaper price.

Sir. D. Eccles: Restrictive trading agreements affecting bread were included in the first direction to the Registrar as to the cases to be taken before the Restrictive Practices Court.

Mrs. Braddock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this monopoly is a very vicious one in Liverpool, that at the moment the multiple firms of bakers have


refused to supply the smaller shops with the bread which they bake, because the small shops have been selling a 28 oz. loaf at 2d. cheaper than the multiple firms, and that they have refused to serve the small shops and are creating a very difficult situation? Will the President of the Board of Trade consult his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who has the whole of the documents in his possession, and see what action can be taken immediately to deal with this very difficult situation?

Sir. D. Eccles: If an agreement exists for withholding bread from certain shops, of course it is registrable. Anyone can bring a complaint and get the agreement registered.

Mr. Wiley: I appreciate the action that is being taken, but in view of the outrageous behaviour at present occurring in Liverpool, is there no immediate step that the right hon. Gentleman can take?

Sir. D. Eccles: It is one of those matters for which we have provided under the Restrictive Practices Act.

Sir. L. Ungoed-Thomas: What is the use of saying that agreements of this kind are registrable when there is no guarantee when they will be dealt with? Can the right hon. Gentleman now say when this action is likely to be taken upon the registration of these agreements?

Sir. D. Eccles: I should have thought the hon. and learned Gentleman knew that lawyers took a long time to prepare cases, but I have no doubt that when they start this series of cases they will go through the court fairly quickly.

Sir. L. Ungoed-Thomas: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the difficulty is caused not by lawyers dealing with the matter, but by the legislation introduced by the right hon. Gentleman's Government, which deliberately introduced a system involving long delay, as was pointed out to him from this side during the passage of the Act?

Sir. D. Eccles: The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite wrong. If he studied the kind of procedure that is necessary to prepare these cases, he would know that some months must elapse but that, once the courts start, the matter will go through. It is inevitable that, if cases are to be properly prepared, time must be taken.

Mr. Jay: Has the President of the Board of Trade taken any steps to see whether there are registrable agreements in this case which have not been registered?

Sir. D. Eccles: Not recently, because the direction to the court a year ago was to take agreements on wholesale and retail prices of bread among the first list.

Mrs. Braddock: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply and the fact that I hope that between now and the end of the Recess positive action will be taken by the Board of Trade, I will attempt to raise this matter on the Adjournment after the Recess.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Companies (Capital)

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware of the growth of the practice of acquiring the shells of public companies for the purpose of evading capital issues control, and for other purposes; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.

The Paymaster-General (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I have nothing at present to add to my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) on 4th February,

Mr. Wilson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I specifically avoided referring to the tax avoidance aspects of this practice, for obvious and seasonal reasons? Will he draw to the notice of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who should now be in an advanced state of preparation of his Budget, that this is of great importance not only in the tax sense but also in the sense of the avoidance of capital issues control?

Mr. Maudling: My right hon. Friend always pays close attention to anything said by the right hon. Gentleman, particularly when he is as tactful as he is today.

Television Films

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the amount received from television films and material exported under the arrangements made for their showing in other countries


during 1957, and the cost of such material sent to this country by these countries during the same year.

Mr. Maudling: I regret that separate records are not kept of receipts from the export of television films and other material. The expenditure authorised in 1957 on the import of such material amounted to about £2¼ million.

Mr. Davies: Is not the latter figure very heavy? Does not it have an adverse effect on the balance of payments, as most of these films which are shown on television, many of which are of poor quality, come from the United States and must be paid for in dollars?

Mr. J. Griffiths: We could stop the lot.

Mr. Maudling: While exact records of the export earnings from this material are not kept, I understand that on balance it looks as if there is a slight net addition to the balance of payments.

Welsh National Opera Company

Mr. Gower: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make it a condition of his future grants to the Arts Council that it makes more generous allocations to the Welsh National Opera Company; and if he will make a statement.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. J. E. S. Simon): No, Sir.

Mr. Gower: Is the Minister aware that the work done by this company in reviving opera which has not been performed in the United Kingdom for 50 years or more has been widely acknowledged, and in view of the fact that taxation, which supplies the grants to the Arts Council, is collected from all over the United Kingdom, would not he agree that the funds at the disposal of the Welsh Committee and the funds allocated to the Welsh National Opera Company are pathetically small?

Mr. Simon: I know that the Welsh National Opera Company enjoys a high reputation, but I think it would be a mistake to depart from the long-standing policy of leaving the question of how the grant should be distributed entirely to the Arts Council. My right hon. Friend has confidence in the way the Council exercises its discretion in the performance of that duty.

Mr. J. Griffiths: While appreciating that, may I ask the Financial Secretary if he will convey to the Arts Council the fact that there is a very deep and widespread feeling in Wales that the Council has not been fair to the Welsh National Opera Company, and would he consider the grants that are made, because, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, this company has a very high reputation, not only in Wales, but outside Wales as well?

Mr. Simon: I am sure that the Council will take note of the exchanges that have taken place today.

European Free Trade Area

Mr. Osborne: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) whether he will make a statement on the request he has received from the French Government to have a share in Commonwealth markets without giving anything in return before being prepared to co-operate with the proposed European Free Trade Area; and, as French objections are likely to destroy this proposal, what proposals he has prepared for anticipating this contingency; and
(2) what are the protectionist conditions which France is demanding in the European Free Trade Area proposals; what his policy is in relation to those demands; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Maudling: As I told the House in the debate on Friday, 28th March, we have received no French proposals. I understand that the Six Treaty of Rome countries are considering certain French suggestions and as a result it is expected that a paper will be available before the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on 2nd May.

Mr. Osborne: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by saying that he has received no proposals, but he has received suggestions? What is the difference between a suggestion and a proposal? May I ask whether he will ensure that the French are not allowed to destroy this proposal as they destroyed E.D.C. as it was first proposed, and will he ensure, above all things, that the agricultural interests of this country are not sacrificed to the French proposals in the long run?

Mr. Maudling: Any question on the difference between proposals and suggestions should be addressed to one of the Law Officers. The difference I was drawing was between proposals put to the United Kingdom—and there have been no such proposals—and suggestions made by the French Government to their colleagues in the Treaty of Rome, of which, of course. I am unaware.

Purchase Tax

Mr. McKibbin: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, when reviewing the incidence of Purchase Tax, he will take into consideration the anomaly that oil-burning heaters are exempted whereas electric domestic heaters are subject to Purchase Tax at 60 per cent. of the wholesale price; and if he will bear in mind that oil requires to be imported while the basic materials for the production of electricity are home products.

Mr. Simon: My right hon. Friend will bear in mind the facts stated in the Question.

Mr. McKibbin: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the Purchase Tax on all electrical heaters is impeding rural electrification throughout the United Kingdom, particularly in Northern Ireland, where there have never been any power cuts owing to the foresight of the Northern Ireland Government in providing adequate generating capacity? Will he ask his right hon. Friend, as an ex-Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, to bear this point in mind?

Mr. Simon: My right hon. Friend will take into account the further facts stated by my hon. Friend, but I think that if I commented I would be anticipating my right hon. Friend's Budget statement.

Stamp Act, 1891

Mrs. Hill: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in view of the reduced amount now collected by the 2d. stamp at present required by the law on receipts for accounts over £2, if he will amend the Stamp Act, 1891, in order to remove this requirement completely.

Mr. Simon: I cannot anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget statement.

Mrs. Hill: While the hon. and learned Gentleman may not be able to anticipate

his right hon. Friend's Budget statement, and in view of the changed value of money since the Act was passed in 1891, will the Financial Secretary to the Treasury say whether, if he cannot dispense with the point altogether, the amount be raised to something more reasonable in comparison with the present-day value of money?

Mr. Simon: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will note and take into account what has been said by my hon. Friend.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will his right hon. Friend also, between now and the Budget, take into account something to which we drew attention last year—the extraordinary fact that Stamp Duties in this country, including those on Stock Exchange transactions, are not legally enforceable and that payment cannot be enforced, but offenders can be fined only a small sum if they do not pay? Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware of the widespread evasion and avoidance of the payment of Stamp Duties, and will he ask his right hon. Friend to look at that matter as well?

Mr. Simon: I will draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the points that have been made by the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Lipton: Is not it a fact that, as a result of the objects of the Cheques Act being completely misconstrued, firms of otherwise good reputation are deliberaately not carrying out their responsibilities in this matter and are refusing to provide stamped receipts on the payment of accounts? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman make it clear that companies' stamped receipts are legally enforceable and must be provided when an account is paid?

Mr. Simon: That is an entirely different question.

Public Service Vehicles (Oil Duties)

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many representations he has received from operators of public service vehicles in regard to the adverse effect of the present level of oil duties on bus and coach services particularly in the rural areas.

Mr. Simon: My right hon. Friend and I have received representations on this matter from, or on behalf of, 14 companies operating public service vehicles and from four Associations representing such operators generally. Representations have also been received from a number of local authorities, some of whom operate their own public service vehicles.

Mr. Davies: In view of the very large number of representations which have been received concerning the heavy burden of the motor fuel tax upon public service vehicle operators, what action does the Chancellor propose to take? Is he aware that there is increasing evidence of a reduction in the services, particularly in the rural areas, and a general deterioration of public services as a result of this heavy tax? Now that the principle of discrimination in regard to the imposition of this tax has been accepted by exempting members of the United States Forces from the petrol tax, cannot the Minister extend this concession to the operators of public service vehicles?

Mr. Simon: I rather think that that supplementary question was really designed to air the points that the hon. Gentleman had in mind rather than to tempt me to anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget statement.

Bulletin for Industry (Commonwealth Trade)

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the Bulletin for Industry, for March, 1958, entitled, "Some Myths Exploded," in describing Great Britain's post-war economic achievements made no mention of Commonwealth and Colonial development and did not distinguish between the Commonwealth and other parts of the free world to which the British are of economic importance as bankers, traders, investors, and as allies for defence; whether the Information Division of the Treasury will discuss the importance of the Commonwealth and sterling area to the United Kingdom economy in a further edition of the Bulletin for Industry; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Simon: The scope of the article "Some Myths Exploded", which was already long, did not allow of the inclusion of the Commonwealth and sterling area as a separate topic; but the Bulletin for Industry has in the last five years

published 27 articles dealing wholly or in part with Commonwealth matters, and will publish others, including one on the theme my hon. Friend has suggested.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: While thanking the hon. and learned Gentleman for that undertaking, may I ask him whether his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has studied the speech made by the Prime Minister yesterday at a meeting of the Empire Industries Association? Is not it our duty and our interest in the matter of survival to give priority to Commonwealth trade? While the Chancellor is busy exploding myths, will he try to explode some of the 19th century myths which seem to pervade the back rooms of the Treasury?

Mr. Simon: I do not think I can accept the implications in the last part of that supplementary question.

Mr. H. Wilson: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that we intend to take full advantage of the forthcoming Budget debate to explode a lot of other myths which have emanated from the other side of the House? Will he confirm that the reason why the information which was asked for was omitted from this statement was because in the last six years imports from the Commonwealth have seriously fallen while imports from the dollar areas have increased, thus reversing the pre-1951 trend?

Mr. Simon: It will not have escaped the right hon. Gentleman's notice that exports to the dollar area have also increased.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Wheat (Steel Milling)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the importance of vitamin E in bread to the health of the nation, what experiments have been made for, or on behalf of, his Department to ascertain the effect of steel milling plant on the wheat germ oil; and in what way loss of this oil is made up in the flour for breadmaking.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. J. B. Godber): My right hon. Friend is advised that although vitamin E was discovered more than thirty years


ago, its importance in human nutrition has not yet been established.
No such experiments as the hon. Member mentions have been conducted specifically for, or on behalf of, my Department. It is known however that much of the vitamin E in flour occurs in the germ and that removal of the germ in the milling process reduces the vitamin E content appreciably. But vitamin E is contained in other common items of the diet and on this account my right hon. Friend is advised that the total intake should be sufficient to meet any possible need.

Raw Sugar Stores

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how much sugar is stored by his Department on disused airfields.

Mr. Godber: The raw sugar stored by my Department is part of our strategic stocks. It would not be in the public interest to disclose the quantity now stored on disused airfields, but it is only a small and steadily decreasing fraction of our total raw sugar stocks.

Mr. Willey: While recognising the coyness of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, may I ask him why in this year of 1958 he stores sugar on disused airfields? Why not store it properly? How much wastage has there been over the last few years?

Mr. Godber: It is perfectly normal practice to store it in the open. It does not deteriorate to any extent more there than when stored under cover. The amount of wastage is extremely small, certainly less than 1 per cent.

Mr. H. Wilson: What degree of cooperation is there between the hon. Gentleman's Department and the Board of Trade? Why, when the Board of Trade is getting rid of its strategic stockpiles of metals and other raw materials, is the hon. Gentleman still clinging to stocking sugar on disused airfields? What is the strategic difference between sugar and raw materials from this point of view?

Mr. Godber: A great deal. I did indicate that stocks are being reduced at the present time.

Bread (Price)

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he is now prepared to institute price control of bread, in view of the action of certain bakers in Liverpool who are refusing to supply shops with their bread, because they are taking a supply of bread from a firm of bakers who can offer the bread at a much cheaper price, details of which have been sent to him.

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether, by price control or other means, he will reduce the retail price of bread in areas where action is being taken to avoid such reduction.

Mr. Godber: My right hon. Friend does not think price control would be appropriate. Restrictive trading agreements affecting bread were included in the first direction to the Registrar as to the cases to be taken before the Restrictive Practices Court.

Mrs. Braddock: Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the information with which I have supplied his Department indicates that there is a very big bread monopoly in Liverpool affecting the price of bread, and that some very serious action must be taken immediately about this matter, so that people who desire to pay cheaper prices for bread may do so through shops being supplied with the cheaper bread? Will he consult the President of the Board of Trade to see what active steps can be taken immediately to do away with this very vicious monopoly?

Mr. Godber: I have studied carefully the documents which the hon. Lady was kind enough to send me. As to the restrictive practices aspect, I can add nothing to what my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade has said in this House this morning. As for supplies, I understand from the documents which the hon. Lady sent me that these local suppliers are obtaining supplies of bread at the present time and that there is no difficulty, as far as I am aware, in anybody obtaining what he wishes.

Mr. Willey: When will the hon. Gentleman do more than study documents? We have repeatedly raised this complaint in


the House. When will he do something to stop these undesirable practices which are keeping up the price of bread in this area?

Mr. Godber: I think we must get this quite straight. This is an entirely new matter which has arisen. In regard to restrictive practices, I have indicated that it is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade, and I cannot go further than what my right hon. Friend said this morning. As to the question of prices generally and the question of price control, there is no evidence that price control would bring down prices. It certainly did not when hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite were in power.

Mrs. Braddock: Has the hon. Gentleman read the documents aright? I believe, if I have read them rightly, that they state that three multiple firms in Liverpool, whose names are given, have refused to supply small shops in a working-class area who have been taking bread from a firm which is supplying a 28 oz. loaf cheaper by 2d. a loaf than the multiple firm. Will the hon. Gentleman read the documents again? I am certain he has not read them right.

Mr. Godber: I am sorry, but, as I understand it, shops are obtaining supplies of the cheaper bread without any difficulty, and so their customers are able to obtain it. Of course, I will look at this again. I would deplore any action taken to prevent shops from receiving bread. However, as I understand the documents, there is no difficulty in their obtaining the bread they wish.

Mr. Jay: What practical result has there been from this direction to the Registrar?

Mr. Godber: I have indicated already that that is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade, as the right hon. Gentleman knows.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

African Houses, Nairobi

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what conclusions have been reached in the discussions between the Government of Kenya and the Nairobi City Council with regard to the building of African houses.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. John Profumo): One thousand four hundred houses are being built under Kenya Government supervision on behalf of the Nairobi City Council. The first 200 of these will be ready for occupation by mid June, and the scheme should be complete by May, 1959. The City Council is preparing plans for a further 600 to 700 houses and propose to place the contract themselves.

Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this Answer is quite unsatisfactory? Is not it a fact that discussions have been going on ever since 1955 about the building of 5,000 houses for Africans in Nairobi and that this has been described by Mr. Atkinson, the housing adviser in the Colonial Office, as being the worst housing problem in East Africa? Will he say when he expects the 5,000 houses are to be built, and will he place in the Library a copy of Mr. Atkinson's report on the housing situation of Africans in Kenya?

Mr. Profumo: The hon. Lady has asked a lot of supplementary questions, but I appreciate that she feels very strongly about this. First, I will consider placing a copy of the report in the Library. Secondly, the target of 5,000 still stands, as far as I am aware, but it may take some time. Thirdly, I think we ought to recognise that this problem, although it is a very big one, must be basically a problem for the Council, but the fact that the Government have taken power in a novel way, as I think the hon. Lady knows, in helping with this housing drive shows the Government's appreciation of the housing needs of Africans in Nairobi.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA AND NYASALAND

British-Protected Persons (Passports)

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies at what date the issue of passports to British-protected persons in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland was transferred to the Federal Government; and why.

Mr. Profumo: Responsibility for the issue of passports to British-protected persons in Northern Rhodesia and


Nyasaland remains with the Territorial Governments who decide whether a passport should be issued and w hat endorsement it should bear. The Federal Government carry out only the physical issue of such passports, on an agency basis. This has been the practice in Nyasaland since 1st April, 1957, when the Federal Government took over administration of immigration, and it was convenient for the issue of passports to remain with the same office. A similar arrangement was made in Northern Rhodesia with effect from 1st March, 1958.

Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his reply will be a great reassurance, as a rather misleading impression was created by the statement that passports had been federalised? Will he give an assurance that his right hon. Friend will not surrender his power to control the issue of passports for British-protected persons and therefore the right of hon. Members in this House to raise any question of the issue of passports affecting those people?

Mr. Profumo: I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for the first part of her supplementary question. I think the second part raises a much wider issue, and I would ask her to put it on the Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — CENTRAL AFRICA

Corporal Punishment

Mrs. Castle: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for what crimes whipping can be ordered in the territorial courts for which he is responsible within the Central African Federation.

Mr. Profumo: As the reply involves considerable detail I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mrs. Castle: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that on 2nd January in the magistrates' court at Lusaka an African boy was sentenced to 22 strokes of the cane for theft? Is not that a violation of the penal code, which permits a maximum of only 12 strokes of the cane for any child under 16? In view of the fact that Southern Rhodesia has just introduced whipping as a punishment for the theft of maize, w ill the hon. Gentleman see that this barbarous form of punishment is not either extended or abused in the Protectorate?

Mr. Profumo: I think the hon. Lady has a Question on that subject another day, and I do not think it right that I should anticipate the Answer my right hon. Friend may wish to give to that Question. As to corporal punishment as such, we have abolished it in this country, and we should like to abolish it in the Colonial Territories, but attention has to be given to local circumstances, which are not in all cases, as the hon. Lady will appreciate, anything like similar to those in this country.

Following is the reply:

Northern Rhodesia

Any male person under the age of 21 years, convicted of an offence punishable by three months' imprisonment or more, may be sentenced to be caned. A male person over the age of 21 may be sentenced to caning if convicted of:

Burglary.
Housebreaking.
Theft.
Rape.
Attempted rape.
Indecent assaults on females.
Defilement of girls under sixteen years of age.
Attempted defilement of girls under sixteen years of age.
Defilement of idiots or imbeciles.
Procuration.
Procuring defilement of women by threats or fraud or administering drugs.
Indecent assault on boys,
Disabling in order to commit felony or misdemeanour.
Stupefying in order to commit felony or misdemeanour.
Acts intended to cause grievous harm or prevent arrest.
Inflicting grievous harm.
Maliciously administering poison with intent to harm.
Wounding and similar acts.
Assault causing actual bodily harm.
Assaults punishable with five years' imprisonment.
Robbery.
Attempted robbery.
Assault with intent to steal.
Demanding property with menaces with intent to steal.
Being found armed, etc., with intent to commit felony.
Aggravated cruelty to animals.

A convicted prisoner charged before a magistrates' court with certain offences under the provisions of the Federal Prisons Act may be sentenced to caning.

Nyasaland

Caning can be ordered for adult or juvenile male offenders convicted of the following offences:—

Rape or attempted rape.
Indecent assault on females or boys under 14.


Defilement of girls under 13 or attempt and conspiracy to defile.
Defilement of imbeciles or attempt.
Procuration.
Second conviction for living in immoral earnings.
Unnatural offences or attempt.
Indecent practices between males.
Assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Attempt to murder by convict.
Wilfully endangering the safety of railway travellers.
Casting away ships or attempt.
Robbery with violence or attempt.
Destroying inhabited houses with explosives.
Disabling with the intention to commit a felony.

The High Court has laid down that corporal punishment can be imposed only when a substantive sentence of imprisonment is also passed.

STRONTIUM 90

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Prime Minister if he can now state when the promised report on the growth of strontium 90 in children's bones will be published.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I hope by about the middle of this year.

Mr. Allaun: But is not it a fact that the latest Harwell report is now nearly 18 months out of date, and that this showed a marked increase, which must have continued since? Can the Prime Minister comment on the recent statement by Dr. Synge, the Nobel Prize winner, that children bottle-fed on cow's milk in the West of England, Scotland and Wales are absorbing 30 to 40 times as much strontium as the children in the eastern parts of the country?

The Prime Minister: I am afraid that, without notice, I cannot comment on the second part of that supplementary question, which I found it rather difficult to hear. With regard to the first part, these reports will be published as soon as they are ready.

COMMODITY PRICES

Mr. Osborne: asked the Prime Minister, since dollar commodity prices have increased in the last year by 16·4 points from 382·1 to 398·5 and sterling prices have fallen by 67·5 points from 478 to 410·5, if he will discuss with President

Eisenhower during his forthcoming visit to the United States of America methods of giving sterling commodity prices the same stability as dollar prices, so as to avoid the spread of Communism in sterling commodity areas; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: I assume that my hon. Friend is referring respectively to Moody's United States index and to Reuter's United Kingdom index of commodity prices. Both are in fact now lower than a year ago, though Reuter's has had the bigger fall. But both include commodities of interest to both sterling and dollar countries, and individual commodities have had very varying fortunes. These indices do not give a true comparison of the prices received by sterling and dollar producers.

Mr. Osborne: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether it is a fact that certain sterling commodity prices have fallen considerably? Does he agree that in those areas of the uncommitted third part of the world, where it is so vital to keep them on our side of the Iron Curtain, it would help immensely if we could get greater stability in these prices? Will he take the opportunity when in America to discuss the matter with the President?

The Prime Minister: Of course, the stability of prices is important, but I want to correct what I am sure is a misunderstanding on the part of my hon. Friend. For instance, Reuter's index is based on C.I.F. prices, and since these include the very big fall in freight rates, it makes it difficult to compare that with an index which is based upon a different system. As regards the prices of different commodities, as I have said, their fortunes have been rather varying. There have been large falls of about 15 per cent. or more in wool, copper, lead, zinc, cheese and rubber. There have been moderate falls of under 10 per cent. in tin, tea, coffee and butter. There has been practically no change in cotton, jute, meat and wheat. There has been a marked rise in cocoa. Therefore, it is difficult to generalise.

Mr. H. Wilson: Yes, Sir, but whatever the statistics, will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the great importance of this fall in commodity prices to the prospects for world economic affairs? Also, will he be undeterred by the rather


disappointing reaction there has been by the United States to international commodity agreements over the past six or seven years, and will he recognise that there may be a hope for a more constructive attitude at the present time?

The Prime Minister: I am never put oil by disappointment at any time.

SUMMIT CONFERENCE

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister when he expects to be able to make a further statement on the proposed Summit Conference; and what progress is being made through diplomatic or other channels.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Prime Minister what obstacles are being placed in his way in proceeding with the proposed summit talks by either the United States of America or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Prime Minister: Neither the United Kingdom nor the United States Governments have placed obstacles in the way of summit talks, but both have laid emphasis on the need for preparatory work. I hope the Soviet Government will agree to this, especially in view of the clear and practical proposals which the British, United States and French Governments made to them on 31st March.

Mr. Henderson: Will the Prime Minister clarify one point? Will the three Western Governments insist on the holding of a Foreign Ministers' conference, even though the proposed diplomatic discussions lead to an agreed agenda?

The Prime Minister: Of course, if everything could be settled at the diplomatic level, that would be a good thing.

Mr. P. Williams: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the initiative of the newly-elected Canadian Government in this matter, in the suggestion that there should be Commonwealth initiative to break down the rigidity of the American approach? Can my right hon. Friend go a little further in making a comment on that, and can he also comment on the possibility of making a statement on the intentions of the British Government in relation to testing our own hydrogen weapon, how long those tests will take,

and whether there is any possibility at the end of them of getting an agreement to suspend tests?

The Prime Minister: I think all those points were covered by the statement I made last Tuesday. On the first point I am very pleased, and I think the House was gratified, at the clear, practical, short aide-méemoire deposited by the three Governments with the Soviet Government. I am sure the right thing to do is to wait—and I wait with hope and confidence—for the reply of the Soviet Government.

Mr. Gaitskell: Will the Prime Minister clear up one other point? He spoke just now of the possibility of everything being cleared up at the diplomatic level. Does he mean by this that he would be satisfied if agreement could be reached on the agenda at diplomatic level, and that if that were the case there would be no need for the Foreign Secretaries to meet?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I hope there will not be any misunderstanding. The document sets out a system which I hope will be accepted. I think personally that the meeting of Foreign Secretaries, which I think the Russian Government themselves have now accepted, would be a very valuable part of the general machinery for reaching a successful result at the Summit Conference. Therefore, I personally think that this system is the best one. We must see how it works out and keep in mind the object, and the object is to have a conference at the summit which will produce some successful results.

ARMY APPROPRIATION ACCOUNTS (BOOTS)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Prime Minister in view of the unsatisfactory state of affairs revealed by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his Report on the Army Appropriation Accounts, 1956–57, wherein it is stated that, amongst other items, 1,250,000 boots and 1,000,000 half-soles were wrongly ordered and are now surplus to requirements, if he will re-organise the present inter-departmental committee set up to prevent waste of public money in order to secure greater efficiency.

The Prime Minister: The case to which the hon. Member refers has been reported to the House by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The right course is to await the Report of the Public Accounts Committee before any further statement is made.

Mr. Dodds: But why does the Prime Minister make such a spineless excuse for a shocking waste of public money? Is not it a fact that his predecessor, Sir Anthony Eden, because of a series of surplus goods frauds, set up an inter-Departmental committee to prevent this kind of thing happening? Is not it clear that, before this colossal order was placed, the boots were not likely to be required, and that for too long now they have cluttered up the Branston Depôt at Burton-on-Trent? Will the right hon. Gentleman say when the people guilty of wilful waste will be sacked and what is to happen to the boots?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman has made a long statement, as is often his custom, much of which is not based on fact. It would be contrary to the tradition of this House and utterly improper for me to do anything now except to wait until the proper Committee of this House, which is the Public Accounts Committee, has made a Report on the basis of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is the ordinary procedure of the House, and I intend to follow it.

Mr. Dodds: Owing to the very unsatisfactory Question—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—I withdraw the regret about the Question and substitute: owing to the unsatisfactory Answer, I give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

NUCLEAR TESTS

Mr. Frank Allaun: asked the Prime Minister upon what scientific evidence he based the statement which he made to this House on 1st April, 1957, to the effect that a deliberate attempt to hold a nuclear test explosion in such a way as to avoid detection would almost certainly be successful.

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the recent announcement of the Soviet Union of

their intention to stop further nuclear tests, he is satisfied that all nuclear test explosions can now be effectively monitored; and if he will make a statement.

The Prime Minister: Although I cannot of course go into any detail, I can say that we now have specific evidence confirming my previous statement that a deliberate attempt to hold a nuclear test explosion so as to avoid detection would almost certainly be successful.

Mr. Allaun: But a fortnight ago did not President Eisenhower say almost exactly the opposite? Is the President correct, and if so, does not this destroy the argument against accepting the Russian proposal to stop the tests, namely, that they could not be detected?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I have in mind what the President has said, and I am afraid I cannot take it that he agrees with the hon. Gentleman's submission. The facts are as I said, and it has always been recognised that any permanent suspension of tests, or any permanent way of dealing with this, would require an inspection system.

Mr. Gaitskell: Will the Prime Minister clarify that? He did not mean that they could not under any circumstances be detected, but that it would be necessary to have special controls in order to detect them? Is that right?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir, that is what I mean—of course, under the present situation. Indeed, if I were taking a purely scientific point, I think it would be theoretically possible even with a very comprehensive system of inspection; but, for practical purposes, what I mean is that it would be possible to do this without detection under the present system of ordinary listening, and so forth, which each country keeps.

Mr. Henderson: Would the Prime Minister clarify what he has just said? Is he telling the House that the only way it would be possible to detect tests, perhaps secret tests, would be if an international control organisation were set up, with listening and recording posts in all the countries in which tests are likely to take place?

The Prime Minister: I think, roughly speaking, that is the deduction. I was asked a scientific question, and I did my


best to answer it. These questions are difficult to answer. I try to answer them from a practical as well as from a theoretical point of view. I am only saying that we have evidence—and it is certainly clear—that it would be possible. It is now possible to organise a test and deliberately attempt to avoid detection by any of the normal means now open to the various countries.

MINISTERS' SPEECHES

Mr. V. Yates: asked the Prime Minister whether he will instruct Ministers, when making official speeches in the country, always to make clear the fact that they are speaking in their Ministerial capacity.

The Prime Minister: No such instructions are necessary. Official speeches are by definition made in a Ministerial capacity.

Mr. Yates: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, after leading a deputation to the Minister of Health, described the Minister of Health as "a junior colleague" and as having "ducked the issue"? Does not this indicate a difference of opinion between Ministers, and will the Prime Minister say which opinion he supports?

The Prime Minister: I think the hon. Gentleman is making a great deal of this incident. As I understand it, the Chancellor of the Duchy was carrying out his duty as the Member for his constituency, and perhaps he showed the proper fervour that such Members do. However, I am sure that this is of very minor importance. I am informed that this matter was one

in which the Chancellor of the Duchy was acting in what he believed to be ordinary constituency work at a private meeting. Therefore, if there is any difficulty it is one of a very minor character.

Hon. Members: A little local difficulty?

Mr. H. Morrison: Are we to take it from the Prime Minister that he is now establishing the doctrine that any Minister has a right to attack another Minister on a constituency matter if the first Minister does not get his own way with the Minister of the Department concerned?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. There was nothing of the character of an attack, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Es my right hon. Friend aware that the more Ministers follow his example yesterday in making speeches drawing attention to the economic opportunities in the Commonwealth the more many of us will be pleased?

Mr. Gaitskell: Can the Prime Minister really be serious when he says that it was not an attack upon the Minister of Health? Very strong language was used. Would not the Prime Minister agree that it is a very strange lapse coming from a Minister who is supposed to be in charge of public relations?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is a much better judge than I am of how to try to keep a party together.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Heath.]

ROAD HAULAGE REGULATIONS (INFRINGEMENTS)

12.2 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Davies: I rise to draw attention to the observance and enforcement of certain provisions of the Road Traffic Acts, particularly as they concern the operation of the road haulage industry. I am taking this opportunity to raise the matter because it cannot be dealt with adequately at Question time. I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for having selected this as one of the subjects to be debated on the Adjournment before the Easter Recess.
There are a large number of provisions in the Road Traffic Acts which concern the orderly operation of the road haulage industry. There are, particularly, provisions of the Acts concerning working conditions, and it is to two of these, in particular, which have been widely infringed in recent months, if not in the last two years, that I wish to draw attention.
There are two provisions which concern employees in the industry, Section 19 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, lays down the number of hours which can be worked by drivers or other employees, and in particular limits them to 11 hours' continuous driving and a certain number of hours in 24. Section 16 of the Road and Rail Traffic Act, 1933, requires that records shall be kept by drivers on behalf of the operators and that these records shall contain particulars of the journeys made. It is only by checking the log sheets that it is possible to ascertain the number of hours which have been worked and whether the statutory requirements are being observed.
In a competitive industry it is inevitable that there should be some breaches of the law, but it is most regrettable that since denationalisation, under the Transport Act, 1953 there has been a steady increase in the number of offences committed, the number of prosecutions and the number of convictions. I have only to quote figures which have been given to me in reply to Questions to show this. For instance, in respect of Section 19 of the 1930 Act, in 1954, when denationalisation was just beginning, there were 924 convictions for nonobservance of the requirements relating

to working hours. The figure nearly doubled in 1955 to 1,743 and it increased to 3,336 in 1956. Thus, the number of convictions has more than trebled in three years.
The enforcement officers were used in connection with the petrol rationing scheme in 1957, so there was no enforcement during part of the year. However, by the last quarter of 1957, when enforcement was again being carried out, the number of prosecutions and convictions recovered, as it were, to the rate which had previously prevailed. That shows that there was no diminution in 1957. The annual rate on the basis of the last quarter was more than 2,000.
It is, as I said, inevitable that there should be some non-observance of the law, but it is most regrettable that there should have been this very large increase; and there is evidence to show that only a small proportion of the offences committed are brought to court. Anyone who is interested in the transport industry, travels on the roads and meets drivers will obtain ample evidence of the very large number of drivers who are being employed for far longer hours than the Acts permit. If one visits a transport café and speaks to the drivers there, sees the weary state that some of them are in, and hears of the long hours worked, one is shocked and surprised at what is going on. Every night there are drivers who should not be driving at all. They have been working far longer than the 11 continuous hours permitted, they are weary and a danger to others on the roads.
Whenever I have drawn attention to this matter in the House, or have written about it in the Press, drivers have written to me about breaches in the law. I have a batch of letters here. I will quote just one. The driver writes:
We are doing 250–300 miles daily on trips and, at the same time, delivering the goods to shops at an average of 12 drops each long journey and putting about 15 hours' driving time in each day. We are going mad, driving at this rate … We may do Manchester to the North-East Coast with 15 drops and a round trip of 300 miles—this is a day's work, but still our wage for all this is £10 flat. We have got to fiddle our log sheets down to the 11 hours' driving time. I have done a 650 mile round trip with deliveries and have to be back the following day.
One has only to see the distances which these drivers have travelled mentioned


in the charges to know full well that they could not possibly have driven within the limits imposed by the law.
Not only have I received this evidence, but in the commercial Press, such as Motor Transport, Headlight, and other papers concerned with transport, there are constantly reports of cases which have been brought before the licensing authorities and in which the figures of the long distances driven have been given. It is true that, as a whole, operators wish to abide by the law, and that by no means are all road hauliers guilty of committing offences. The regrettable thing is that if certain operators break the law, because of the competitive conditions of the industry, others, who would much prefer to abide by it, may also have to turn a blind eye to the excessive hours which their drivers work.
Many hauliers are very small operators, and, in the excessive competition which prevails in the industry today, following its atomisation, they find that they can make ends meet only by running vehicles to death and by allowing drivers to work excessive hours. It may be correctly said that no breach of the law can take place without the connivance of the drivers themselves. That is true enough, but there are two reasons why drivers accept the conditions imposed by their employers.
The first is the great temptation to earn extra money, and easy money inasmuch as, because it is paid in contravention of the law, it is generally handed out in cash and not returned for tax purposes. Drivers can easily earn a few extra pounds a week if they fall to the temptation of exceeding the maximum permitted number of hours of work and if they are willing to "fiddle" their log sheets to give a false picture of the hours worked.
The second reason why drivers fall to this temptation is the fear of losing their jobs. Less scrupulous hauliers insist on drivers breaking the law under threat of dismissal. In one of the cases brought to me from time to time a man who accepted dismissal because he refused to work excessive hours was refused unemployment benefit when he applied for it. However, representations were made and he obtained unemployment benefit, but that example shows that this is a quite usual practice in the industry.
Enforcement is a problem. It is very difficult to enforce the law when there are nearly 1½ million vehicles subject to this legislation. Unfortunately, the Minister has not found it possible to appoint sufficient enforcement officers. In reply to a Question of mine recently, he said that there were 102 driving and traffic examiners employed full time. That is a ridiculous number. It is ludicrous that there should be only 102 enforcement officers to deal with nearly 1½ million vehicles. That is one enforcement officer to 15,000 vehicles. How can one enforcement officer possibly watch that number of vehicles?
It is very difficult for these officers successfully to bring prosecutions, to obtain the necessary evidence, because they cannot stop any vehicle without being accompanied by a police officer in uniform. That limits their activities considerably, because they have to make it known that they are to take action and they have to obtain the services of a police officer to do so.
Enforcement officers are engaged not only on enforcement of provisions about working conditions, but are also employed from time to time in giving driving tests to motorists, and on a great number of other activities. When I put that Question, only 102 were employed full time. The Minister said that he was recruiting more enforcement officers and I believe that he is trying to engage another 50, although I do not think that they will all be employed full time on this aspect of the Ministry's work.
One reason why it is difficult to recruit more officers is that the pay is inadequate. The salaries are inadequate to attract and retain in this type of work people who are skilled and qualified and who have integrity. I believe that it is the desire of the Minister to enforce the law. Whenever I have brought cases to his attention, as I frequently have, full investigation has been made and, in many cases, prosecutions have taken place, but Ministers should not rely on letters from Members of Parliament, or informers, or snoopers, for the enforcement of the law. It should be possible to employ sufficient people in their legitimate work to enforce it effectively.
Apart from conditions in the industry, the main factor which prevents the proper enforcement of the law in this respect is


that the punishment is not adequate for the crime. The penalties imposed are not sufficient to act as a deterrent to infringement of the law. I have come across many cases where very small fines have been imposed when a large number of breaches has occurred and when the road haulier has clearly been using his vehicles and employing his drivers outside the law, and thus getting far more value out of them and bringing in more revenue. In cases like that, a few pounds here and there make no difference. They are part of his expenses, as it were, and can be deducted from the extra profit which he is able to make by engaging in the competition in this way.
Only last month, the Minister wrote to inform me of the action taken in some cases which I have sent to him. He said about one case:
One operator and five of his drivers were prosecuted in January and on conviction were fined a total of £15 10s. on a number of charges …
That is ludicrous. What difference does a fine of that sort make to the operator when several offences have been committed and when he has obviously gained more by employing his drivers for hours longer than permitted and conniving with them in getting false log sheets?
I should like to quote one more example, because it is equally demonstrative of the inadequacy of the penalties. A Hull and Grimsby haulage firm was fined a total of £292 on 73 summonses. That works out at roughly £4 per summons If three, four or five times that amount is earned on each breach of the law it is clear that any firm will be willing to pay the fines.
If the law is to be properly enforced there must be a deterrent—and the deterrent can be the suspension, for a period, or the complete revocation of the A and B licences under which the vehicles operate. The law already provides those penalties. They can be imposed, but they are very rarely resorted to by magistrates or licensing authorities. In 1956, in over 9,000 successful prosecutions under Section 19 of the 1930 Act and Section 16 of the 1933 Act, there were only four revocations of licences and seven suspensions. Only on 11 occasions out of 9,000 was the more severe penalty of revocation or suspension resorted to by the courts.
That is no deterrent to the unscrupulous or ruthless operator. In the last quarter of 1957, out of 1,910 successful prosecutions there was not a single case of revocation or suspension. The Minister's powers are limited. He cannot give directions to licensing authorities. But he can make it known in various ways what his wishes are, and his wishes are not generally ignored by licensing authorities.
The only long-term cure for this parlous state of the goods traffic part of the industry is reorganisation, but that is not the purpose of the debate. Only when we return to a planned transport system and abolish the excessive competition resulting from the atomisation of the industry following denationalisation will we remove the temptation for operators to employ drivers for far longer hours than the Statutes permit, and for drivers to work those longer hours in order to gain more money. In the meantime, the Minister could help to minimise the number of occasions on which the Statutes are broken by employing more officers and streamlining and improving the procedure under which they operate, and, at the same time, persuading licensing authorities to resort to more severe penalties when they deal with cases of repeated infringement of the Statutes.
The Minister should substantially increase the number of enforcement officers and should overhaul the methods used by them, so that the procedure can be simplified. He should also make known the seriousness of these offences and his determination to reduce them. It lies within his power to take far more effective steps than he has so far, and to bring to an end the present position whereby many drivers of heavy vehicles not only endanger themselves through excessive fatigue, but also increase the danger to other road users. I ask him to take this matter seriously and to consider what further steps he can take to ensure that the law is observed and safety on the roads improved.

12.25 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: We always appreciate the opportunities—even if they are fleeting—to discuss our transport industry. When we compare the situation existing here, with all its slight blemishes, to that which obtains in many other countries, we find a tremendous


amount upon which we can congratulate ourselves. I rather regret what the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) said upon the subject of nationalisation. I do not think that it is a factor of any moment in this discussion, except in the context in which he used it. It is inevitable that when a transport system is broken down into smaller units a few managers will be found who are not of the same calibre as those of the larger units, whether they be nationalised or not.
The competition to which he refers may help to bring this situation about, but we must get the matter in perspective. Although the number of infringements under the two relevant Sections have increased—and they have increased impressively if they are viewed upon a percentage basis—they must be considered in the context of the enormous amount of transport which is now flowing along our roads. It is absolutely colossal. In that context I cannot agree that the number of offences is very great, although we should all like to see a decrease.
We must pay tribute to the high standard of conduct on our roads. I travel quite a lot, and I never cease to be impressed by the standard of driving of commercial transport drivers, whether they are nationalised or not. There is also a very high standard of courtesy among them, which is unequalled in any other country. I wish that more courtesy was shown by private drivers. These factors should be weighed against the other little blemishes.
I like to go into road transport cafés. I find them much better places than the other cafés which can be found up and down the Great North Road. I cannot bear out what the hon. Member for Enfield, East says about their being full of dejected and tired gentlemen, leaning on the tables, "done in". That is quite contrary to my view. I am privileged to know many of these drivers, and they know me. I talk to them, and I find that they are usually exceedingly happy, jolly, alive and awake. There is a danger of our creating in the public mind the false impression that there is something terribly wrong about the situation.
There may be room for improvement, but I know of no walk in life where there is not. We should make it clear that we feel that, generally speaking,

our affairs on the roads are run extremely well, and the standard is extremely high. We should make it clear that we feel that it is something that we can be proud of and can show off to visitors. Such blemishes as exist are infinitesimal compared with the usually high standard of conduct both of operators and drivers.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East seeks only to serve a sensible and useful purpose, but I think that we are sometimes apt to cry stinking fish about ourselves—and cause others to believe it to be true—when there is no reason for crying or for stink.

12.29 p.m.

Mr. David Jones: I am not sure whether the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) is comparing like with like when he suggests that we should compare the standard of conduct in this matter with that which exists abroad, because the situations are entirely different. I would remind him that the first Act from which these regulations were made is now twenty-eight years old, and the other is twenty-five years old. If Parliament thought that this kind of standard of conduct was necessary on the roads twenty-five years ago, how much more important is it today, with the tremendously increased volume of traffic? My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) was bound to introduce the problem of nationalisation, because it was the breaking up of the nationalised fleet by the Act of 1953 and the intensification of competition on the roads that brought about these conditions.
I would not disagree with the hon. Member for Shipley when he talks about the standard of driving and the demeanour of the average driver. The drivers of heavy vehicles are among the best class of the community. It is all the more tragic, therefore, that they should be subjected to the kind of iniquities to which they are subjected by unscrupulous employers. It is because we have a standard of drivers of heavy vehicles which is second to none that we ought not to subject them, in the interest of competition, to the temptations to which they are subjected these days.
A driver in charge of a heavy vehicle of, maybe, two-and-a-half, three, four or five tons unladen weight and with a volume of goods on the vehicle, who has


been on the road for 11, 12, 13 or 14 hours, is not only a serious danger to himself, but to every other road user whether he be the driver of a private car, a passenger in a passenger service vehicle, a cyclist or a pedestrian. After long periods on the road, drivers of heavy vehicles must of necessity be fatigued.
It may be argued that if a driver declined to co-operate in breaking the law, the law would not be broken. That would be putting such a driver who is dependent for his livelihood on cooperating with his employer in an impossib1e position. If a driver declined to break the law, the chances are that in a reasonably short time following that refusal an excuse would be found for getting rid of him. Where would he go from there? What would be his chances of getting a job with another private enterprise firm if he had first to reveal to his prospective employer the name of his late employer? The prospective employer would no doubt telephone the previous employed, who would probably reply something like this, "I dismissed him because he would not drive for 11 hours." Does anyone really believe that that driver would get the job?
I suggest, therefore, that to ask drivers to be themselves responsible for keeping their employers within the law is asking far too much. If in the interests of safety on the roads it was necessary twenty-eight and twenty-five years ago, respectively, to introduce these regulations, how much more important and necessary is it today?
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East said that there are nearly 1½ million licensed commercial vehicles on the roads today. A substantial proportion of them are vehicles of more than two tons unladen weight. By and large, the road system of this country has not improved substantially from what it was twenty-eight years ago. If it was important in 1930 and 1933 that the law should be preserved, how much more important is it in 1958? The responsibility for seeing that the law is observed and that, if it is broken, effective action is taken, lies with the Ministry of Transport.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East said, in 1956 more than 3,000 prosecutions were instituted. I would remind the House that that was

the number of people who were actually caught. How many others were not caught because of the limited number of enforcement officers? The number is not the total number of offences committed in 1956; it is merely the number of convictions of those caught in the act of breaking the law. The actual number of those breaking the law must obviously have been considerably more than that.
The other danger which has not been discussed this morning is that of vehicles which are operating in a condition of unfitness. With increased congestion on the roads, it is obviously vitally important that the regulations should be observed and that the law should be enforced to the maximum possible degree. Therefore, I support my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East in urging the Ministry to give serious consideration to increasing substantially the number of enforcement officers.
One other point I wish to make is that if owners of privately-owned commercial vehicles are permitted to get away with breaking the law to a substantial extent, it means that the other forms of transport which are observing the law are unable to procure in fair competition the traffic which they are entitled to carry. It may very well be that that is why the volume of freight carried on British Railways in 1957 was less than that in 1956.
As a consequence of that—I do not propose to do more than refer to the matter in passing—the railwaymen are being called upon to endure conditions of employment which are not in keeping with conditions observed in other industries. It seems to me to be quite unfair that the road transport industry, particularly the small owner of a limited number of vehicles, should be allowed to flout the law in this way and thus reflect adversely upon the conditions under which railwaymen are employed.
The remedy lies in the hands of the Ministry of Transport. The Parliamentary Secretary may say that the Minister has no authority other than to observe the law. I am quite sure that within the Ministry there are channels through which the views of the Ministry can be conveyed to licensing authorities throughout the country. I would emphasise the need for the Ministry to give consideration to increasing the number of enforcement officers employed. That,


in turn, would involve a reconsideration of the salaries paid to these enforcement officers. I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to tell us that the Ministry is proposing to take all these remedies so that this state of affairs may be put right.

12.39 p.m.

Mr. J. A. Sparks: I want to leave the Minister sufficient time in which to reply to the debate, but I should like, very briefly, to say that I support my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) and my hon. Friend the Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) in what they have said on this matter. I certainly disagree with the approach of the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst), which seemed to be one of complacency and sheer indifference. I do not think that anyone on this side of the House attempted to make a wholesale and sweeping indictment of all road operators and all road drivers, but, in most walks of life, it is the irresponsible minority—the anarchists, if we like to call them such—which endangers good law and order.

Mr. Hirst: I would like to correct the hon. Gentleman. It is not a question that my speech was intended to be complacent. I only asked that we should put the matter in perspective. I said that the 3,500 prosecutions were unfortunate, and I did not approve of it at all, but there are, as the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) mentioned, 1½ million vehicles on the roads, travelling I do not know how many journeys. It is only a question of proportion, not of complacency.

Mr. Sparks: I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman is coming a little nearer to our point of view. He agrees with us that the irresponsible minority must be watched, and, if necessary, that action must be taken in the interests of the whole community. There he comes very much nearer to our view.
We know the difficulties which the Minister may have in enforcing the law in this respect. We know that the vehicles on the roads today, compared with those on the roads twenty-five or twenty-eight years ago, have about doubled in size and number. Therefore, the road transport problem has become much more intense than it was at the time when the Road Traffic Acts were passed through the House.
In view of the increasing traffic, the increasing danger, and the appeals that are constantly made for greater care on the roads, as well as the increasing volume year by year of injuries and fatalities, we must ever be vigilant to reduce the hazards on the roads to the absolute minimum. That is the intention of this debate. We do not seek to penalise the good operator or the good driver. We want to strengthen the law against the anarchists, who will, if they can, evade their obligations under the law, and who not only evade them but exercise a power of intimidation over their employees.
It is not a very easy matter for an employee to defy his employer without running the risk of being dismissed and having his character blackened. When he looks for another job, he has to produce a testimonial. What sort of testimonial will he get from his previous employer when that employer has sacked him because he was not prepared to break the law?
The Minister ought to try, if he can, to catch up with these people. The only way I can see in which he can do that is by strengthening the establishment of his enforcement officers, Let us have a few more of them. At present, they are totally inadequate. In an Adjournment debate we cannot talk about matters that involve legislation, but this is something that must be constantly watched in order to reduce this irresponsible minority in road transport to the absolute minimum.
If it is allowed to grow, and the bad practices are allowed to continue, they will completely undermine the whole structure of road transport, because the good employers and operators will inevitably, on account of this unfair competition, be driven to resort to the same methods. While that situation continues, it is a real threat to the industry itself and to all of those who have to use the highways.

12.45 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): In rising to reply to this debate, I recognise the interest of the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), which has gone back over a good many years. The hon. Gentleman was asking questions on this topic three or four years ago. I agree


with him that we gain a general benefit from a short debate of this kind, when we can put matters more completely in their proper perspective.
I welcome and agree with some aspects of the debate. Certainly, we are concerned to see that the Acts of 1930 and 1933 are properly administered, in so far as they concern these matters, and, also, to see that enforcement is adequate. I will give the figures for the information of the House.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East made a number of very general allegations which are not supported by evidence. We are always ready to take up evidence of any particular case, as the hon. Member mentioned, and let me say straight away that those cases of which we are informed in that informal and private way are the merest fringe of the total number. The vast majority of cases are dealt with in the ordinary process of enforcement, and I hope that I shall leave the impression in the House that the view which is taken by hon. Members opposite—that there is widespread intimidation of employees by employers who cause them to make these breaches of the law—is not supported by evidence.
It is not fair to make the allegation, and I warmly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) that this is a very reputable industry. It is true that it is a highly competitive and young industry, and, indeed, its rates are tremendously low. I suppose that is one of the range of prices which has risen less than any other in the last year or two. Though that may make difficulties, it is certainly giving benefits to the traders concerned.
Let me give the figures about staffing. The pre-war figure was about 100. Our permanent establishment for this purpose is 100, and our system is to add to that figure of 100 permanent enforcement officers—traffic examiners, we call them—a rota from the driving examiners' staff, which we hope will rise to 52. At present, it has been varying between one or two and about a dozen or so, but we feel that these traffic examiners who have this experience will be a most valuable fortification in this kind of work. Our total hoped-for establishment will be 152 in due course. At present, we have 94 of our permanent officers in post and we are advertising five vacancies, which we

hope to fill in the course of the next few months.
With regard to driving examiners, we have been heavily handicapped by the necessity to take them off enforcement work during the petrol rationing period, and we have also had a backlog of driving applications to deal with, but we have now shifted that fairly well and reduced the waiting period to an average of five weeks. We are holding a further competition this summer and we hope to enrol a considerable additional number of driving examiners. We have 775 now in post, and I hope that we shall be able to enrol another 100 or so. If we are able to do that and cope with the backlog, I think that there is every prospect in the coming months of gradually increasing the number who will be able to go over to this work.
Hon. Members have made some play with the fact that there has been a rising number of prosecutions in connection with Section 16 of the 1933 Act and Section 19 of the 1930 Act. Over recent years, in fact, the number of prosecutions is, in proportion, less than it was in prewar years. I know that that is an argument that could be used either way, but I do not think that it supports the argument that the situation has deteriorated since 1953 and denationalisation. The fact is that licensing authorities proceed rather more with warnings to first offenders and proceed to prosecutions only in the more serious cases.
The size of the fine, about which the hon. Member for Enfield, East complained, is entirely within the discretion of the court. With some responsibility for traffic matters, I, not unnaturally, sometimes feel that fines are not as adequate as they should be. On the other hand, in days gone by, when I sat as a member of a bench of magistrates, I have taken a different view of the situation. So there it is. The courts have their constitutional independence and we have to accept that they will move broadly in line with public opinion. I think that there is a tendency for fines to rise not only for these offences, but for motoring offences generally, although I agree with the hon. Member that at times they seem to be on the lenient side.
The licensing authorities can suspend or revoke licences. That is a very serious penalty. It is also true that they do not do this in very many cases.

Mr. Ernest Davies: The offences are serious.

Mr. Nugent: I agree, but we must leave it to the good judgment of the licensing authorities, and their experience, to decide in which cases it is right to adopt that course. Again, I must give the reply to the hon. Member which I have given before, that I do not think it would be right for my right hon. Friend to interfere with the judgment of the licensing authorities.
Reference has been made to the nature of the breaches. I agree that the failure to keep proper records is a breach. Safety factors, which were referred to by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones), are the responsibility of the vehicle examiners. I do not think that there is any problem on the staff side. A great deal has been said about the actual keeping of records. The hon. Member for Enfield, East alleged—and the allegation has been made generally—that these records are not kept correctly. It is difficult to say. We prosecute in a number of cases and we make spot checks of vehicles on the road where we suspect that operators are not keeping records. Enforcement officers will follow these people to see what does happen.
But I do not think it fair to make a general allegation against the road haulage industry that records are faked, because we simply do not know. The record of breaches of the regulations and of prosecutions is there, the number is fairly large—

Mr. Sparks: May I ask—

Mr. Nugent: I cannot give way, because I have little time in which to finish what I have to say. I listened with interest, and I think with courtesy, to what hon. Gentlemen opposite had to say—

Mr. D. Jones: And I hope that the hon. Gentleman learnt something.

Mr. Nugent: I hope so, and I hope that hon. Members opposite will listen to me and will learn something. But I say roundly that it is unfair to make such a general allegation against the road haulage operators.

Mr. Jones: It is true.

Mr. Nugent: The hon. Member says, "It is true." He has no evidence that it

is generally true. Where cases are brought to our attention we prosecute, and we are continually checking the records, but I do not agree that these people, generally speaking, are less honest and less law abiding than other sections of the community. I must reject that suggestion.
The hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Sparks) and the hon. Member for The Hartlepools referred to the question of road safety, and I am concerned that excessive hours should not be worked by the men who drive the vehicles, because that would be dangerous for them and for the community as a whole. But on examining the figures, one finds that there were 55,000 accidents to goods vehicles—which is not a great number out of the 1¼ million vehicles on the roads—and, according to police records, only 65 of those accidents were attributable to excessive fatigue. It would not appear, therefore, that the practice is widespread.
Again, I do not think it fair or right to make allegations of this kind which cannot be effectively disproved but which, on the other hand, cannot be effectively proved.

Mr. Jones: Then what do we do?

Mr. Nugent: It may be that breaches are committed more often by the smaller operators than the bigger operators, but there is no evidence to show that that is so. I was concerned to hear the hon. Member for The Hartlepools, with all his seniority and responsibility, make the allegation that employees are intimidated into faking their records. Allegations of that kind may be made in this House, but they are simply not worth the air which they displace when they are made unless they are supported by evidence. We will examine any evidence which comes to us. I say once again that it is not fair to the road haulage industry to make allegations of that kind—

Mr. Jones: rose—

Mr. Nugent: No, I. cannot give way, I have only five minutes left.
I will gladly take up any case which the hon. Member brings to my notice. No one could feel more strongly against such a practice than I. It would be a most reprehensible state of affairs if it existed. Indeed, when there are prosecutions it appears, as the hon. Member will know from the figures I have sent him,


that in a large number of cases the employer is the person prosecuted and in not quite so many it is the employee. But there is nothing to show that it is only the employer who is at fault. After all, it is human to err. People will commit breaches of the regulations over this matter as over other matters, and I am not going to accept that it is simply the employers who are at fault.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East and the hon. Member for The Hartlepools said that the real trouble stemmed from the time when the long-distance haulage industry was denationalised; and that the only cure would be to reverse that situation. But it was not the experience of this country that when there was more naionalisation, when hon. Members opposite were in power, with a greater number of rules and regulations, that there were fewer breaches of the regulations. Never has this country seen a greater number of breaches or black markets—

Mr. Ernest Davies: Where is the hon. Gentleman's evidence for that?

Mr. D. Jones: That is a generalisation.

Mr. Nugent: It is not a generalisation at all, it is recorded firmly in the hearts of the people. Never have we seen such a period of black markets and breaches of regulations. If the solution offered by hon. Members opposite is to re-organise—as it was put by the hon. Member—or to renationalise the long-distance road haulage industry, that is, the A and B licences, I must point out to them that the majority of the vehicles in this industry carry C licences. The number of C licences is three times the number of A and B licences. What do hon. Members opposite propose to do about that? Will they nationalise the C licences as well?

Mr. Jones: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman should wait and see.

Mr. Ernest Davies: It will require legislation.

Mr. Speaker: Order. There cannot be proposals for renationalising during an Adjournment debate, whether or not there may be such proposals on other occasions.

Mr. Nugent: The suggestions were made by hon. Members opposite and I hope that I have not transgressed in replying to them. I think that my point was a fair one. What has been said today by hon. Gentlemen opposite will leave great apprehensions in the minds of many people.
These regulations and their enforcement are serving their general purpose. The case of the hon. Member for Enfield, which he advocates warmly, and which he has been making progressively for years now, that the whole situation has deteriorated since 1953, is not borne out by the facts. It is simply a matter of guesswork. The hon. Member started with that conclusion and ends up with the same conclusion, and there is nothing to prove it. I ask hon. Members opposite to see this matter in perspective. I give this round assurance to the House, that it is our duty and, indeed, our intention, to make this enforcement effective and to strengthen further the enforcement staff.
We certainly intend to make the regulations as effective as we can and to prevent the kind of abuse that has been suggested today. In all fairness to the road haulage industry it should go out from here that the industry is not less law-abiding than the rest of the community. The picture we see here shows that enforcement is reasonable. As we overcome our staff difficulties we shall try to make it even more stringent.

SITES, WIMBLEDON (COMPULSORY PURCHASE)

1.2 p.m.

Mr. Cyril W. Black: In the all-too-brief time available to me I wish to raise with my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General the compulsory purchase orders which have been served, on behalf of the Postmaster-General, on three owners respectively of Nos. 21, 23, and 25 Worple Road, Wimbledon, in my constituency.
Mr. Pearson has for many years been the owner of No. 25, Worple Road. The information I shall give the House relates particularly to his site, but in many particulars the circumstances of the other two owners and the other two sites are not dissimilar to his.
Mr. Pearson feels a deep sense of injustice at the way in which he has been treated, so much so that he has felt it right to circulate to hon. Members a detailed statement of events leading up to the compulsory purchase order. The facts as disclosed by him have received much attention in the national Press and great local concern has been expressed about it. The comments made by the Press and by the public have been almost uniformly unfavourable to the action taken by the Postmaster-General.
The history of the case is, briefly, that Mr. Pearson owned the site in 1937, in which year, more than twenty years ago, he first contemplated the redevelopment of his land. In 1937, he made a planning application, which was refused. The matter did not proceed further owing to the gathering of the war clouds between 1937 and 1939. In 1941, Mr. Pearson suffered severe loss when his property was almost completely destroyed by enemy action. He was left virtually with a clear site. He was unable to rebuild or redevelop in any way while the war was in progress.
Shortly after, in 1946, when conditions were beginning to be normal, Mr. Pearson was contemplating renewing his planning application, when a notice was served upon him by the local planning authority. Wimbledon Borough Council, prohibiting him from rebuilding on his land without consent of the council. The prohibition did not matter very much because, in

1946, it was extremely unlikely that Mr. Pearson would obtain a building licence. Therefore, the redevelopment of the site was not then practicable.
In 1951, when conditions were returning to normal in the building trade, Mr. Pearson made a further planning application, which was refused. He appealed to the appropriate Minister, and his appeal was granted. He was given consent to the development of his site. In 1952, a compulsory purchase order was served on him by the Wimbledon Borough Council. There was a public inquiry, and the appropriate Minister decided, following the inquiry, not to confirm the compulsory purchase order.
In 1953, Mr. Pearson's site was designated for compulsory purchase in the draft development plan. Objection was lodged, and the designation was withdrawn as a result. In 1955, Mr. Pearson entered into joint arrangements with the two other owners for the development of the three sites as one complete unit. An application to redevelop was made and was refused, but an appeal was made and was allowed.
In 1956–57 the Postmaster-General came actively on the scene, and notice of intention was given on his behalf to make a compulsory purchase order. This led to a public inquiry. Following that, in the early part of this year, the Postmaster-General intimated that he had decided to make a compulsory purchase order, but he declined to publish the report of the inspector who had conducted the inquiry.
That is as much as I can say about the long chain of unfortunate events, lasting more than twenty years, in which Mr. Pearson has been involved, because I have agreed to take only about half the period available for the debate. I want my hon. Friend the Assistant Postmaster-General to have an adequate opportunity to deal with what I have said and with any further observations I make. It must be obvious that I have been able to give only the barest outline of the complicated and frustrating chain of events, and that Mr. Pearson has been subjected to intolerable delay, great expense and to treatment which can only be justified if it can be shown that there is some supremely important public project connected with this land. Only that could justify the overriding of private interests by public interests.
There has been great public interest and public concern in this matter not only in the area of the site, but nationally. The onus is upon the Minister to satisfy the House of the reasonableness and the necessity of his actions. I would, therefore, put to my hon. Friend five questions which will enable him to judge of the considerations which Mr. Pearson has in mind and of the rebuffs from which Mr. Pearson has suffered. Perhaps my hon. Friend may, in reply to these five questions, be able to reveal more of the motives of the Postmaster-General than has up to now been made clear.
The first question is: why was the Post Office so dilatory in coming to a final decision about the site? One of Mr. Pearson's important complaints is that he has been left for a long period of years in suspense in which he could do nothing about developing his site. It is intolerable that landowners who are anxious to develop should be subjected over such a period to frustration and delay, which necessarily involves expense. The series of public inquiries has involved Mr. Pearson in enormous expense for legal costs, payment of fees to expert witnesses, and the preparation of plans, not to mention the interest on money locked up in the site, and many other items which I am sure my hon. Friend will understand are at stake when the owner of a site is deprived for a long period of the opportunity to develop his land.
The second question is: cannot the Post Office find some other site which it can purchase from a willing vendor for a telephone manager's office? What steps have been taken to find an alternative site? I understand that the building which the Postmaster-General wishes to erect upon this site is not a building which is in any way restricted to the operations of the Post Office service within the confines of the borough of Wimbledon but is to be, as it were, an area office or an area headquarters from which Post Office work will be undertaken which will serve the requirements of a widespread area.
It only happens that the Postmaster-General's eye has lighted on a site in Wimbledon, whereas a site further out might have been equally suitable for the purpose; and if such a site further out could be found in a less congested area,

the value of the land would be less, possibly a willing vendor could be found, and the deprivation, the loss and the sacrifice in which Mr. Pearson is to be involved could be avoided.
The third question is: why does the Postmaster-General refuse to publish the inspector's report? I know that my hon. Friend is as well acquainted as are other hon. Members with the recommendations of the Franks Committee. The attitude of the Postmaster-General in this matter is directly at variance with the recommendations of the Franks Committee. The main conclusions of the Franks Committee have been accepted in principle by the Government and I do not understand, nor does Mr. Pearson understand, why there is this reticence, this unwillingness, this reluctance to publish the inspector's report on a matter which is not only of great concern to Mr. Pearson, but is of very great interest to the public both locally and nationally.
It is probably hardly necessary for me to remind my hon. Friend of the dictum which is quite properly often quoted in the House—that it is necessary not only that justice should be done but that justice should appear to be done and should manifestly be done. It seems to me that there has been an infringement of that principle in the circumstances of this case.
The fourth question is: what is the overriding necessity which compels the Postmaster-General to acquire this site and to erect a large building, which, I understand, is designed to house about 1,200 office staff? This is a serious matter in a fully built-up town like Wimbledon, where the shopping centre is already overcrowded. As I said a few minutes ago, it appears to me, and it certainly appears to Mr. Pearson, that a site a little further out in a less crowded area would have very many advantages over this site in Worple Road, Wimbledon.
The fifth and last question is: is my hon. Friend aware of the views of the Wimbledon Chamber of Commerce, which were made known at the public inquiry and which have been given considerable publicity since? They are that any building erected on this Worple Road site should contain shops on the ground floor and adequate public and private parking space. If the Postmaster-General is insistent on proceeding with


this project—and I have attempted to voice some of the criticisms of it—what does he intend to do about these two vitally important questions raised by the Chamber of Commerce?
The Chamber of Commerce holds the view that this site is the obvious and natural site for the extension of the Worple Road shopping centre. It feels that further shops would be advantageous from the point of view of increasing the shopping facilities of the town, and the Chamber therefore emphasises that in its view—and it is the unanimous view of the Chamber—there should be shops on the frontage on the ground floor.
I do not think that I need remind my hon. Friend of the importance of the parking problems in a town like Wimbledon. Part of this site which it is proposed shall be developed by the Postmaster-General is already a parking site, and this will be lost if the Post Office building is erected. There will obviously be many vehicles used by the 1,200 workers who will occupy this great office building if the scheme proceeds. Does the Postmaster-General propose to incorporate in the building adequate parking space, both for the general public and for the Post Office employees?

1.16 p.m.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): The indictment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Black) of the actions of the Post Office in dealing with this very difficult problem sounds very formidable. My hon. Friend is in a difficult and embarrassing position in that he has to try to co-ordinate his responsibility to Wimbledon as a whole, and to his constituent, with his responsibility, which I know he takes very seriously, to the general public weal.
I hope that my hon. Friend will not think it patronising of me—and I do not intend it to be—if I say that no one could have done more than he has done to try to harmonise the widely diverging interests which form the basis of this case and which give it its peculiar and difficult characteristics. I should like him to know that our position in the Post Office is as difficult and as embarrassing as I am sure he must have found his position.
There has been a good deal of public criticism of the Post Office both in

Wimbledon and, as a result of Mr. Pearson's correspondence, over a wider field. We are proposing to use powers in the Post Office which we are very loath to use, which we have refrained from using in cases where it has been possible to find alternative means and which we do not want to have to use any more than is absolutely necessary.
I hope that I may claim that the record of the Post Office as a public authority in the matter of compulsory powers of this kind is extremely good. Over the last two years the Post Office has been concerned in the acquisition of no fewer than 750 sites and properties, and in the whole of that complicated operation we have had to call on compulsory purchase powers in no more than six cases. Of those six, the compulsory purchase powers were necessary in three cases because the owners could not be traced and there was no other way in which we could have been allowed to proceed.
I hope that it will meet the convenience of the House if I deal with the points raised by my hon. Friend in an historical setting of what has been a long and difficult matter. Indeed, I think that the major charge which can be laid against the Post Office, and which was laid by my hon. Friend, is that we have taken a long time. "Dilatory" is the word which my hon. Friend used. The objector, Mr. Pearson, has complained of the consequences to him of the long time which the Post Office has taken in this matter. I say at once that he has very good cause to complain of the consequences to him of the long time which has been taken in reaching a decision in the matter.
To a large extent, in fact, Mr. Pearson is a victim of our great reluctance to use compulsory purchase or to disturb him at all. It is because we have gone to very great lengths to avoid placing him in this difficult and compromising position that time has passed as it has, and, if the House will bear with me, I propose to show the very great lengths to which we have gone to to find an alternative solution to this problem in a way that would enable us to spare Mr. Pearson the torment and difficulty to which he has been subjected.
My hon. Friend gave the history of this property in a very fair and comprehensive way, but there are one or two


corners of the history that I think I ought to fill in. The Post Office has not suddenly descended on Worple Road, seeking a victim upon whom it could wreak its vengeance. We have been in Worple Road for a very long time, at Nos. 29, 31 and 33, and, since 1943, we have been at No. 3 Raymond Road, just round the corner and part of the same site. As my hon. Friend said, we have been trying since 1951 to acquire the remainder of the site to enable us to build the sort of building that we need.
We have not done this by trying to drive Mr. Pearson, or any other owner, into a corner and then exercising the power of a compulsory purchase order on him. We have tried by negotiation, by designation—to which my hon. Friend referred—and by the other process of definition, to get some agreed procedure by which this whole property could become available to the Post Office. Nos. 21, 23, 25 and 27 Worple Road have all been caught up in this long and difficult process of trying to purchase by agreement with the present owners. Nos. 21 and 23 were occupied and, of course, we were reluctant to use powers there Ito disturb the existing owners. Of the other two, we are now trying, and have been trying since 1956, to buy No. 27 by voluntary negotiation. We have, therefore, made very real efforts, right through this present case, to conduct ourselves with reasonableness and a proper consideration for the interests of the present owners.
While we have been doing this all this while, we have also been conducting a very wide and extensive search for an alternative site. We have looked at any number of alternative places in which we could put the kind of building we have in mind. A very large number of sites have been examined. Some have been mentioned at the various inquiries that have been conducted, but all, either by reason of present use or of present condition, have been found to be unsuitable—some because of the nature of the site itself, and some by reason of the place in which the land lay. A very great number of inquiries have been made. I hope that that answers the second, I think, of my hon. Friend's questions. We have gone on over a very long time, and over a very wide area, searching for a suitable site.
Why is it so difficult for the Post Office to find a suitable site? What are our requirements, and why are they so pressing that, in the end, we have had to come back to the site in Worple Road? We propose to build a telephone manager's office on this site; an office that will house the staff of the area telephone manager. A telephone manager's office is a very highly-organised, highly-integrated unit of administration. The building to be erected will have to house a staff of 1,200 people, of varying grades, conducting the telephone business of a very large area. The population of the area is about 1,850,000, we have 227,000 subscribers already in the area, and we estimate that over the next twenty years that number will just about double. There is, therefore, a very large, complicated business to be conducted from this office, wherever it is to be placed.
We found—and, indeed, this is common experience with businesses of all kinds—that dispersal of this integrated unit over a large area, or in a number of buildings is inefficient, uneconomic and expensive, and the consequence of its being inefficient, expensive and uneconomic falls on the generality of our subscribers. The building has to be readily accessible, both to the general public, all of whom have good cause, for various reasons, to go to the telephone manager's office, and easily accessible to this not inconsiderable staff, who must be able to get to and from their work. We must have road and rail transport of all kinds in order to conduct our complicated business efficiently, and we must be able to build in an area where such a building is not either an outrageous abortion, or out of place, out of style, or out of character in some other way.
We are in Wimbledon at present, and we have been there for more than twenty years with this administrative unit. Wimbledon meets all the other requirements. It is accessible to the rest of the telephone area, there is good road and rail communication with Wimbledon from the remainder of the area, and all the odds are in favour of our having a telephone manager's office, of the kind I have described, in Wimbledon itself. In Wimbledon, despite the most diligent search over a very long time, we have been unable to find another site. Indeed, I think that it has come out of the various inquiries that have been held that


Worple Road is, in fact, the only site available for the kind of building that we find it necessary to erect.
The facts have been canvassed a great many times. They all came out in the public inquiry to which my hon. Friend has referred, in September, 1957, and they are dealt with at great length in the report of the inspector. That brings me to my hon. Friend's question: why do we not publish the report of the inspector, consequent upon his inquiry? My hon. Friend referred to the recommendation of the Franks Committee which, as the House knows, has been accepted by the Government, that the reports of inquiries should be published.
This report was prepared following an inquiry held before the Government decided that inquiry reports should be published. The Government, therefore, had to decide whether they would make this practice retrospective and publish reports prepared before such publication had been decided on, or whether they should draw a line and, from the date of that line, publish reports, and withhold those prepared before. It is not just mischievousness that has decided the Government not to publish this report, which happened to be prepared before the line was drawn. The House has to remember that reports prepared before that date were prepared by inspectors in the belief that they were not to be published. That, of course, is not to imply that they contain either secret or damaging references of any kind. It is simply the nature of the report, and the basis on which it was prepared.
This report comes within that category, but even that is not the only deciding factor against publishing it. A great many such reports are being prepared every day. I am advised that between 5,000 and 6,000 inquiry reports are prepared every year as a result of this and similar processes. If one of those prepared before the date-line were to be published, there would be no good case for not publishing them all. The Govern-

ment would be faced with a problem of machinery which the present arrangements simply could not satisfy, so I hope that my hon. Friend will believe that the reason for withholding this report is an honourable one, and certainly does not, or should not, imply that there is anything about it that we do not want to have known.
But I can say this. The inspector was satisfied that Worple Road was suitable from a planning point of view—this relates to the point raised by my hon. Friend about the views of the Wimbledon Chamber of Commerce—and that it was the only available suitable site in Wimbledon. Although the report has not been published, the announcement of the decision by my right hon. Friend covered a great deal of the ground with which the inspector's report dealt.
Why cannot we meet the request of the Chamber of Commerce about building shops on this site and allowing the rest of the building to be used by the Post Office? The truth is that we cannot erect a building of the right size for our requirements on this site if a large or important part of it is to be taken up by shops. We are proposing to include in our plans suitable accommodation for the cars of our own staff and for a number of cars brought in by the public, and we hope that that provision will be adequate for the need.
The point to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention highlights what is a classic case of the conflict between a legitimate personal interest and a legitimate public need. It is not the first such case, and I do not suppose that it will be the last. Power to decide these conflicts rests with the Government, and I am sure that it is right. It is a heavy responsibility and we take it, in this case, in the full recognition of what it means to the present owners. If the outcome is, as I am sure it will be, that it will enable us to give a better service to our subscribers in the area, we will be justified and all in Wimbledon will be the gainers.

IMMIGRATION POLICY

1.32 p.m.

Mr. H. Hynd: The matter which I wish to bring to the notice of the House is summarised in a Motion on the Order Paper signed by various hon. Members on both sides of the House. It says:
That in the opinion of this House, the time has arrived for reconsideration of the arrangements whereby British subjects from other parts of the Commonwealth are allowed to enter this country without restriction.
This is a difficult, delicate and not very pleasant subject to discuss. It is difficult, because we are proud of our traditional open door, and we have been especially glad to welcome to these shores people from our own Commonwealth. It is delicate, because anyone who raises it is immediately open to the suspicion of racialism or of arousing passions and prejudices which no one wants to arouse. It is not pleasant, because, as a trade unionist and a Socialist, and something of an internationalist as well, my sympathy is with the underdog, particularly those who find it necessary to leave their own country to try to earn a living.
I would be the first to object to any kind of bar on the grounds of race, colour or creed. Indeed, my object today is the very opposite. It is precisely because I am beginning to be afraid that these prejudices may develop in this country that I want something done about this uncontrolled immigration before the position becomes more serious.
I think that there are few who will deny that, despite all the good work of voluntary bodies and individuals, some serious problems have been and are being created, and this House, in doing its public duty, must not shirk the issue. When I asked the Home Secretary a Question on 6th March he stated that there are no accurate statistics but that a rough estimate of the immigrants last year was something like this: Malta, 500, Cyprus, 1,500, Pakistan, 5,000, India, 6,500; and, from the Caribbean countries, 23,000. That was last year.
In an article which appeared in the Manchester Evening News on 18th March there were estimates of the total numbers in this country. It was estimated that there are 17,000 Pakistanis and probably 45,000 Indians. It was stated

in a recent court case that between 25,000 and 30,000 Indians and Pakistanis had deserted their ships and are now settled in Birmingham, Coventry and Bradford. It is difficult to get the actual numbers, but there are about 65,000 Cypriots in the country and over 100,000 West Indians. When we add to this number 226,000 from the Irish Republic and over 384,000 aliens, refugees and others who are here under strict rules, it will be agreed that we are stretching our hospitality rather far. For the present, however, I am concerned only with immigration from the Commonwealth.
Why do they come here? It would be possible to open a debate on whether we should not take some steps to help them in their own parts of the world—for example, by encouraging the settlement of West Indians in British Guiana, but that would be opening a very wide subject. It will be seen from the pile of letters in my possession that I have had from all over the country how much public interest has already been aroused by the announcement that this debate will take place. I will quote a few words from a letter at the top of the pile. It is from a voluntary social worker, who writes in strict confidence. He says:
Many recently landed coloured folk blame 'the Government'"—
presumably he means their Government—
for allowing them to leave their own countries and for allowing such glowing pictures to be painted of life in the Mother Country, especially by an Italian shipping company …".
I do not know how much truth there is in that, but certainly they are coming, and they seem to be coming in increasing numbers to this country.
People are getting worried about this. These immigrants are undoubtedly adding difficulties to our health authorities. Several hon. Members have asked whether there is any health check at either end of the journey, and apparently there is not. At any rate, the answers to their Questions have been very unsatisfactory and, so far as I can gather, the only check at the moment is that, under the Public Health (Ships and Aircraft) Regulations, 1952, port officers have the right to refuse admission to people with communicable diseases, and that is all.
Lord Onslow, speaking for the Government in another place last Monday, said


that there were 434,000 people on the hospital waiting lists at the last count. This is serious when we think of all these people coming in and many of them possibly needing hospital treatment and adding to the waiting lists. There is the housing difficulty which is worrying us all, and these people are adding to that problem. There is the question of unemployment. At present, the figures have about reached the half-million mark in this country. How will that situation be effected by this flood of immigrants?
There is the question of the size of school classes, a subject that has been worrying several Ministers. People who come into this country will multiply by natural processes, and will add to the difficulty of the size of school classes. Perhaps the most urgent of all is the question of National Assistance, because we would not see anybody starving. When these people arrive in this country they immediately become eligible for National Assistance; we know the financial difficulties which the Government have had in that connection, and it is something which cannot be ignored.
Hospitality is a very worthy virtue, and we are all proud and pleased to welcome guests into our own homes. But would we be justified in inviting into our homes more guests than can reasonably be housed and fed without serious detriment to our own families, even if those guests offered to pay for their accommodation or even if they happened to be relatives? Nationally, as well as domestically, we must try to keep within our means; otherwise, we shall get into serious trouble. I want to avoid that serious trouble which is all too obviously building up. The old adage that prevention is better than cure applies very much in this case. Are the Government watching the development of this problem, and, if so, what do they intend to do about it?
The hon. Lady the Joint Under-Secretary of State might, quite legitimately, ask me what I suggest should be done about it, and I should like to state, in a few words, the kind of thing I have in mind. I suggest that there should be no restriction on visitors and students, that we should admit, within limits, those who have jobs and homes guaranteed, that we might well consider barring people with no visible means of support,

people who are obviously invalids who may be a burden on the National Health Service, and people with criminal records—apparently they are not banned—absconding husbands and the like. Also, we might well consider taking powers to deport those who break the law, just as we do with people from foreign countries.
Are those suggestions unreasonable? It is exactly the kind of thing which is done by all other countries of the Commonwealth. People cannot go from this country to one of them and just walk in as others can come to this country. It is surely quite reasonable to ask for reciprocity.
The Home Secretary has been standing on the principle that it is the historic right of anybody with a British passport to come freely into this country, a very admirable principle so long as we can afford to continue to abide by it. I wonder whether the Home Secretary will be able to maintain that principle if, say, another million people pour into this country. I hope that the Government will seriously re-examine the present situation.

1.41 p.m.

Mr. James Lindsay: I am pleased to support what the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) has said. I was very impressed by the way the hon. Gentleman opened the debate by saying what a very delicate and difficult, though important, subject this is, making it quite clear—I absolutely agree—that it is the possible threat behind the present situation which so many people are worried about.
Anyone from the Dominions or Colonies is allowed to come here as and when he wishes. There are no fewer than 630 million people in the Dominions and Colonies. We offer them a very warm welcome and very generous hospitality, and it is not surprising that very many come. The number who came here in 1956 was 178,000. We are becoming a country of immigration, which is a very great change. The whole question calls for attention, debate and discussion because the change in our country's setup is really a revolutionary one.
There are two problems, one economic and the other social. The economic problem revolves round the problem of employment. Until quite recently, all the immigrants who arrived easily found unskilled jobs, but the position has slightly


changed recently and, apparently, there is a great number of them now unemployed. Some figures about Yorkshire came out only yesterday, and I believe that the picture there is reflected in many other parts of the country. We see the threat, the shadow, of an American recession over this country and, moreover, the promises of science indicate that there will be less and less drudgery in the future, calling for fewer and fewer unskilled workers.
We ought, therefore, to question closely any decision to increase the supply of unskilled labour at a time when there is likely to be a decrease in the demand. We ought to ask ourselves whether we are right to adopt the policy of the "open door". That was a policy which America and other young countries, years ago, at a time when they had vast undeveloped lands crying out for manpower, found very suitable for them; but they long ago ceased to abide by it and they now have the most rigid controls. We should very carefully consider whether it is not right to adopt a measure of control here.
The social aspect of immigration is more important because its effects are more permanent and fundamental. According to the Report of the Oversea Migration Board for last year, a quarter of the immigrants, that is to say, a quarter of the 178,000—45,000—were coloured people. This is a great influx of coloured people into this country, and it will make a great difference to the composition of the population. We are starting on the road to becoming a multiracial country, a mixed community. We must face the facts.
As the hon. Member for Accrington said, it is a delicate subject, but we must not evade it. We must accept the facts of the situation and discuss the question fully, freely and openly. We must not be induced by fear of being thought to desire a colour bar or to have colour prejudice into simulating colour blindness. The fact is there, and it is our duty in the House to look at it fairly and squarely. We must look at things as they are and decide whether they are right.
Now is the time to decide the question. It is for the people of the country to decide. I am very glad that we are having this debate, and I hope that it will be carried on in the country. I know that there is little time today, and that

other hon. Members wish to speak, but I hope that there will be further opportunities to debate this very important subject.
Multi-racial countries have a colour problem, and we must accept that. We see it in countries like South Africa and America and in the mixed Colonies; and a very deplorable and sad thing it is. We pride ourselves on our tolerance and we say that that sort of thing cannot happen here. I am quite convinced that the worst side could not happen, but there always is the possibility of trouble, and it is the risk of trouble, the threat—I emphatically agree with the hon. Member for Accrington—which is so important. Already, we have seen signs of difficulty in the employment of coloured labour even at a time when there was absolutely full employment.
Another thing which I do not regard as at all desirable is that coloured people tend to go to certain jobs, municipal work, transport and the like, and, also, that they segregate themselves in certain areas. This is a deplorable and very disturbing element.
The problem of racialism, nationalism or colour is one which we have not yet had, but the threat is there. It is really just about the worst problem in the world today, and it is the only one to which no answer has so far been found. It is about the only problem which this country has not had to face. We have had plenty of difficulties and problems over the thousand years of our history. Unless there are overwhelming advantages—and I cannot see them—we ought not to lay ourselves open to this possible trouble.
I re-emphasise what the hon. Member for Accrington said. The countries from which immigrants come all have restrictions and controls. There could be no question of our discriminating against them. They could not be offended. They believe that it is right to have control, and we should say, "We agree with you and we, too, will have controls". There could be no difficulty on that score. I hope that we shall hear from the Government that they are very much aware of the difficulty and that, having looked into the matter, they will make a statement about their ideas and policy.

1.49 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: For a long time some of us have been trying to


find out what action the Government are taking to deal with what is undoubtedly a social and economic problem. There is much to be said for the argument advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) and the hon. Member for Devon, South (Mr. J. Lindsay), that there should be some reciprocity of treatment as between this country and the countries of the Commonwealth. If there were completely reciprocal arrangements, I do not think that there would be very much complaint in any quarter.
More than three years ago, the Lambeth Borough Council, which looks after an area where there is a considerable coloured population, sent a deputation to the Colonial Office pointing out the various difficulties and problems which require attention. Nothing was done about that. In December last year, just before the Christmas Recess, some of toy hon. Friends, on the Adjournment, raised various difficulties relating to the housing of coloured immigrants in London. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government said that he would give the matter his attention. Nothing has happened, except that I have had from him a letter saying that he realises that local authorities cannot do much about it, but that he will follow up the possibility of dealing with the housing problem with the National Federation of Housing Associations.

Mr. Albert Evans: Was it not the case that, at that time when the debate took place, the Parliamentary Secretary admitted that there was a considerable problem, certainly in the large towns, in the housing of coloured people? That was an admission we had from him.

Mr. Lipton: Yes, he did make that admission, and he did look into the problem, but the only effect of his looking into it is that, first, he now realises that local authorities cannot do anything about it, and, secondly, that the only way of getting over the problem is to have discussions with the National Federation of Housing Associations. This leaves the position in a very unsatisfactory state. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary of State will be able to give a specific indication that the Government are applying their mind to this problem,

because the situation cannot be allowed to drift along without action being taken.

Mr. Christopher Boyd: Will not my hon. Friend agree that the housing aspect of this problem is actually helped more by the greater volume of emigration than made more difficult by the smaller volume of immigration?

Mr. Lipton: So far as I know, there is no emigration from the constituency which I have the honour to represent.

1.51 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith): First, I would like to thank the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd) for the very objective manner in which he has raised this matter. He has very courageously aired what is undoubtedly a controversial topic in a very fair and factual manner. He will agree with me that no one wishes lightly to prejudice the traditional freedom of British Commonwealth subjects to come to this country. But let us not blind ourselves to the fact that it would be out of order for me to answer fully many of the suggestions that have been put forward by hon. Members, because they would provoke legislation.
The suggestions that have been made for control on entry, restrictions on employment or for powers to deport would all involve major legislation. Nevertheless, while we welcome British subjects to this country, I agree with hon. Members on both sides that we cannot ignore the rising potential of this immigration In view of the size of the populations of the countries from which these people are coming, we have to take stock of the position as it now presents itself, and to realise that it could in the future possibly constitute a very grave burden on this country if the trend were to increase, or if the numbers arriving in this country were to become out of proportion to those that the country can reasonably absorb.
So far as numbers are concerned, the total coloured population of Great Britain is estimated at about 190,000 at the present time. About 100,000 of these came from the West Indies and about 50,000 from India and Pakistan. In recent years the annual net inward


migration of coloured people has been about 40,000. The total from the West Indies has varied, but it has averaged about 25,000, while the total from India and Pakistan has steadily increased until last year it was in the neighbourhood of 12,000. This figure, if this year's trends continue, may well be considerably increased during the present year.
So far as employment is concerned—and if immigrants can be absorbed in employment that is a large contribution towards their being assimilated in the country—generally coloured workers have settled down in employment satisfactorily. They have formed a very useful part of the labour force. In particular, immigrants from the West Indies usually find suitable jobs in a comparatively short time and have proved highly satisfactory workers. Anyone who uses public transport in our big cities will know that they have filled a very great gap in staff and, with their United Kingdom fellow-workers, have done a very good job. The heavy demand for labour has, however, eased in recent months and there is no doubt that coloured workers generally are finding it more difficult to get employment than they did previously. The regular unemployment statistics of the Ministry of Labour do not, of course, distinguish unemployed workers by their country of origin, let alone by their colour.
I hope that hon. Members will not take it that we are not interested in or conscious of this problem. The Minister of Labour has caused special inquiries to be made from the employment exchanges, and these reveal that the numbers of unemployed coloured workers have increased substantially compared with last autumn. Compared with six months ago, the number of unemployed coloured workers has doubled from 7,500 to 15,000. The increase has been particularly marked among the Indians and Pakistanis, who tend to congregate in a few industrial areas. One has to accept the fact that Indians and Pakistanis are not as readily employed as West Indians. A number of them are handicapped by their initial inability to speak English, by illiteracy, and by poor physique, which makes it impossible for them to take the normal labouring jobs which would otherwise be available.
On the other hand, the rise in unemployment among West Indians has been considerably less than that among Indians and Pakistanis. The number of unemployed West Indians rose from 4,500 to 6,500, but unemployment among Indians and Pakistanis increased fourfold. While the total number over the whole country is not vast, the problem is accentuated in the constituencies of certain hon. Members, because these people tend to congregate in a few selected areas.
The review shows that there are nearly 1,500 in the Birmingham area, including 1,300 who have been identified as Pakistanis, and there are substantial groups in Bradford, Attercliffe, Coventry, Walsall, Manchester, Liverpool and the Stepney district of London. As the recent increase in unemployment in this country has been largely among the less skilled workers, it is obvious that this will have a considerable impact on the coloured population in this country.
So far as health is concerned, the impact of coloured people on the National Assistance Board has not so far been such as to cause anxiety to the Board as a result of demands made upon it; nor have they placed excessive demands on the National Health Service generally. Until very recently the health of the majority on arrival has not been notably inferior to that of the established population in this country, although in recent months there has been evidence of a higher incidence of tuberculosis among immigrants from India and Pakistan and, to a certain extent, the Irish Republic.

Mr. A. Evans: Is there a health check on immigrants?

Miss Hornsby Smith: No; but they come to notice when they make use of the Health Service. That is when we find them.
In a survey last September it was found that about 1·4 per cent. of the in-patients suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis were immigrants who had arrived during the preceeding twelve months.
So far as crime and public order is concerned, the information in the possession of the Home Office, taken as a whole, does not suggest that immigrants from other parts of the Commonwealth engage in crime to any greater extent than the natives of our own country.


A special inquiry made of certain large police forces, a year ago, showed that certain types of immigrant possess a propensity to live on the immoral earnings of women and to traffic in dangerous drugs. In some areas certain coloured immigrants appeared disproportionately prone to crimes of violence, but against their own fellow countrymen. The figures are not large, but the concentration of these people in certain cities encourages wider publicity than their record justifies in relation to that of the members of the native population.
The figures are not large and it cannot be said that the coloured population of this country constitutes any special police problem. Although the coloured immigrants are not, on the whole, being assimilated into the country, there is no doubt that the West Indians have gained a wide measure of acceptance and that little friction has occurred, except in one or two isolated and unhappy cases of housing problems.
It would be idle to suggest that housing does not give rise to difficulties. These people come in quite substantial numbers and concentrate on a few cities where there is a labour demand, or where they believe a demand exists, and they add still further to the existing housing difficulties. They congregate where the employment prospects are good and, almost inevitably, where the housing shortage is most acute. The matter was fully explored in a recent Adjournment debate.
We have taken steps with certain of the Commonwealth authorities—for example, the British Caribbean Welfare Service—to discourage unsuitable immigrants. This Service provides, for example, the West Indian Governments and the public with comprehensive information about conditions in the United Kingdom, with particular emphasis on the employment situation. Consequently, immigrants from the West Indies are less unprepared for the conditions, the climate and the possibilities of work in this

country than they were in the initial stages of this immigration.
The Governments of India and Pakistan have for many years taken measures to prevent the issue of passports to migrants who are not likely to find work in this country, but I would not be frank with the House if I did not say that in view of the very large intake of Indians and Pakistanis last year there appears to be some evasion of this control. The Commonwealth Relations Office is making inquiries with the Governments of India and Pakistan to see whether any further steps in this matter are possible.
In general, this is a major matter. It would be a completely new departure for the Government to exercise control over immigrants from the Commonwealth and, of course, any measure, even partial or selective, as hon. Members have suggested, to control immigration would require legislation. All I can say is that we are certainly not complacent about this problem. I have shown by the special inquiries and the records of both crime and employment that we are going deeply into the situation and are anxiously watching it, but we remain reluctant to contemplate any departure from our traditional readiness to receive all citizens who have the status of a British subject.
We consider it necessary to study the information which is becoming available from these investigations, and to do the best we can with the Commonwealth Governments to obtain their co-operation on immigration, in the hope that it may prove possible for the problem to be solved without considering the wider implication of major legislation. Certainly, we are not complacent. We are watching the situation closely.
Again, I thank the hon. Member for Accrington and my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. J. Lindsay) for the very objective way in which they raised this most important matter.

PRIMARY SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION, FELTHAM

2.4 p.m.

Mr. A. E. Hunter: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment a matter which is of importance to a number of my constituents. I refer to the need for a primary school on the Sparrow Farm Estate, Feltham. The estate is of recent construction and development. Designed by the Feltham Urban District Council, it has an area of over 47 acres and contains 515 houses. It is an estate of which we in Feltham are very proud and it is nicely laid out with lawns for children. Visitors from abroad have been shown this housing estate as an outstanding example of our post-war housing construction.
When the estate was planned, provision was made for a primary school. As a result, parents moving into these new surroundings naturally expected such a school. The Sparrow Farm Residents Association approached the Feltham Urban District Council, which fully supports the case for a primary school for the estate, and communicated also with the Middlesex County Council and with myself as the Member of Parliament.
I have been in communication with the Middlesex County Council, with whom I raised the question of a school for this estate. In a reply, dated 6th January, the Clerk of the Middlesex Council Council states:
With reference to my letter of 23rd December, I have now obtained a full report from the Chief Education Officer. The Education Development Plan includes a proposal for the establishment of a new primary school on land reserved for this purpose and adjoining the Sparrow Farm housing estate. This new school would, to a large extent, be a replacement of unsatisfactory accommodation at the Hanworth Road and Cardinal Road schools, which would then be reconstructed for smaller numbers.
The Divisional Executive would like to see the new school built but have been prevented in putting forward the scheme because of the policy of the Minister of Education in relation to new school buildings.
It can, therefore, be seen that the Feltham Council and the Middlesex County Council are favourably disposed towards the provision of a primary school for this estate. It can reasonably be argued that it is the ban on new school buildings

imposed by the Minister of Education which is preventing the provision of the school.
On 31st October, 1957, 378 boys and 379 girls under the age of 16, making a total of 757 children, were living on the estate. The need for the school is therefore clearly shown.
I wrote to the Minister of Education appeailng for a primary school for the estate and the reply, dated 10th March, states that, in addition to the Cardinal Road and Hanworth Road schools, which the Middlesex County Council described as unsatisfactory accommodation,
there was sufficient vacant accommodation in neighbouring schools, for instance, Oriel, Southville and probably, in the near future, Fairholme
to provide accommodation for children from the Sparrow Farm estate.
I know my constituency very well. Even at a conservative estimate, Oriel school is at least 40 minutes' walk from the estate. The estate is near the Hounslow border of my constituency, while Hanworth is on the Twickenham border. In addition, to attend the Oriel school, the children would have to use extremely dangerous roads which carry heavy traffic. This would be a source of worry to their parents. The journey by bus would involve a change of bus en route.
Oriel School, as, no doubt, the Parliamentary Secretary is aware, bears a famous name in education. It is named after the founder of Oriel College, Oxford, who at one time was the Vicar of Hanworth. One recognises, therefore, the close relationship between Oriel College, Oxford, and the Oriel School at Hanworth. Though I am quite certain that that gentleman was keen on education, I am sure that if he were alive today he would never agree that children should walk all that distance, especially in view of the heavy motor traffic and the dangerous roads which they would have to cross. The Fairholme and Southville Schools are also a considerable distance from the estate and the bus service is very limited. Children going to those schools would have a very long walk indeed. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to study, and to ask his officials to study, a map to see that my statements about the very long journeys and the dangerous roads are fully supported.
I appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to ask his right hon. Friend to reconsider this matter. The school was allowed for in plans for the estate. Feltham Council and Middlesex County Council want it, and it would bring joy and pleasure to many of my constituents there. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is keen on education. I think he will agree with me when I say that our future lies with our children. Let them not suffer because of the credit squeeze or the restrictions on local government and education expenditure. I trust that the Parliamentary Secretary will give me hope that when the plans for the primary school are put forward the Minister will grant his permission and will not impose a permanent ban on the new school for that estate.

2.11 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Sir Edward Boyle): It is some time since I last had the pleasure, as it always is, to reply to a speech by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) in this House. I should like to thank him for the very lucid and moderate way in which he has put his case. I always wish on these occasions when we debate a subject of this kind that, for the benefit of the people in the House who do not know the area under discussion, a large-scale electronic map would suddenly appear so that all could follow the details of the discussion.
I know that the hon. Member approached my right hon. Friend, and also the former Minister, the present President of the Board of Trade, on this case and I know of the very close interest he has taken in it over a long period of time. I hope that the hon. Member will realise that, although I cannot give him today the answer he would like to hear, none the less the Ministry is very fully aware of the problems with which he is concerned.
As the House knows, for I have had to repeat this on many occasions from this Box, we have to concentrate the school-building programme on providing new school places for children who would otherwise be out of school altogether. I certainly hope, as does the hon. Member, that the day may not be infinitely distant when we can allow local authorities to build all the new schools they

would like, but no Government have found that possible yet since the war. As I think the hon. Member knows, it is a remarkable thing that, even despite the restrictions on local authority investment and despite the other restrictions on capital investment today, the total size of the investment programme in the public sector of the economy is, in real terms, now 36 per cent. higher than it was in 1951. So it is a very real problem which has faced all Governments since the war.
1 think the House would like me briefly to state what are the relevant facts in this case. The Sparrow Farm Estate, to which the hon. Member referred, is an estate of some 552 houses with a primary school population of 269 pupils. There is no school on the estate, and the majority of the pupils attend the Cardinal Road Infants School and the Cardinal Road Junior School, which is known as the Hanworth Road Junior School.
I should say right away that, although the schools are not on the estate itself, no child has to walk more than one mile to school each day. This distance of one mile is a distance which my right hon. Friend would certainly not consider in itself as being unreasonable. In rural districts there are a great many children who have to walk to school a good deal farther than that each day.
I know that those schools are overcrowded and it is a fact that no further pupils can be admitted from the estate, but I also know that there is vacant accommodation in Oriel, Fairholme and Southville Schools. As from next term it will be necessary to transport pupils from the estate to Fairholme School, but this may not be a permanent arrangement as the age groups on the estate have changed, and there has been a decline from 127 children born in the year 1952–53 to only 65 children born in the year 1956–57.
I must go into a little further detail. Fairholme School is approximately two and a half miles from the estate and Oriel School about two miles distant. The vacant accommodation at Southville is only one and a half miles from the estate. It will be wanted from next September for secondary school pupils and, therefore, cannot be taken into account when dealing with the primary school pupils from the estate.
I know that the hon. Gentleman is opposed to the idea that children should have to travel to school in this way, and certainly in an ideal world this is not an arrangement which any of us would wish to see; but this is a necessary and often repeated consequence of the enormous problems which face local education authorities all over the country whilst the bulge in the school population is passing through the primary school and secondary school age groups.
I should here like to pay a tribute to the Middlesex Education Authority for the way it has solved its very difficult problems in so many parts of the county. Incidentally, there are a large number of secondary modern schools which are gaining very much in prestige and esteem in a way most creditable to the county. The county authority intends eventually to replace the Cardinal Road School. It will not do this on the present site, but it will provide new premises on the estate itself.
Certainly everybody agrees that the buildings are old and unsatisfactory, but once again I must repeat what I have already said today, that I am afraid it will be a very long time before we can replace all unsatisfactory buildings. My right hon. Friend has to allocate all of his resources to the provision of places for children who otherwise would not be able to go to school at all. I realise that this is a decision which cannot be welcome to the hon. Gentleman or his constituents, but I can assure him that as soon as it becomes possible to replace old and unsatisfactory schools we shall give full consideration to the need for a new school on the Sparrow Farm Estate.
The only thing I would add is that, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises, when that time comes, when we can start to replace old and unsatisfactory schools, there will be a very considerable number of authorities who will feel they have a right to a high place in the queue, and I rather think when that time does come, and we have the problem of establishing the right criteria, I shall be answering considerably more Adjournment debates.

ROAD SURFACE, ELEPHANT AND CASTLE

2.18 p.m.

Mr. George Isaacs: I am grateful to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for giving me notice that we were likely to reach this subject a little earlier than had been expected and I thank him for being here to answer me.
I wish to raise matters arising out of Answers given to me by the Minister on 26th March when I raised the question of the surfacing of the Elephant and Castle area. There were two points in his Answers which caused me a little concern. I shall deal with each separately. The first relates to cost and the second to danger.
The Minister told me:
The total cost of constructing the two roundabouts and the associated roads at this junction"—
that is, at the Elephant and Castle—
will be about £1½ million, including the cost of acquiring land and property.
A little later he told me:
The extra cost of using mastic asphalt throughout would be about £13,000 …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1958; Vol. 585, c. 410.]
That was the extra cost of using mastic asphalt instead of hot rolled asphalt, which was cheaper.
The Minister said that he did not think that the extra cost was justified by a longer potential life of about five years. A little later he made it evident to me that he was under the impression that the L.C.C. had agreed with the Southwark Borough Council in making the proposal for the cheaper material. I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to note that when the L.C.C. first put the proposal in a tentative form to the Ministry of Transport its representatives had not then had any talks with the borough council. Subsequently, they did so and then they indicated that they would agree—I do not know whether "they" meant the L.C.C. or the Ministry of Transport—to mastic if the borough council paid the difference.
The first question is: why should the borough council pay the difference? The council is the maintaining, not the constructing, authority. The council is of the opinion that it is the duty of the constructing authority, according to the law


relating to roads, to provide roads capable of carrying the traffic that can be anticipated on those roads. The maintaining authority feels that the roads should be made adequate for a long life, instead of making it necessary for the authority to step in sooner than would otherwise be the case in order to resurface the roads.
Although the Minister is not local to the area, he knows a great deal about it because his journeys take him across it frequently. Most people do not appreciate what a busy junction this is. Six major roads and seven bridges serve this circus. That is not all the story, because three of the major roads are themselves roads which absorb others. For example, the Waterloo Road, carrying traffic from Waterloo Bridge, joins the London Road within a short distance of the Circus. Just before reaching the Circus the Newington Butts Road is joined by Lower Kennington Lane and opposite, on the City side, there is Newington Causeway, which takes the traffic direct from London Bridge and carries it through Southwark Bridge Road. So, in fact, nine major roads converge upon this spot. If care is taken to count the bridges which pour their traffic into this centre it will be found that there are eight, not seven, bridges concerned.
What kind of traffic is there on these roads? I am not sure how long ago a count was taken but I am sure the volume is much greater now. According to my information, the last count showed that 2,000 vehicles an hour cross the Elephant and Castle and that 700 buses cross the junction at the peak period. All this traffic is heavier and denser than in any other place. We hear a lot about Hyde Park Corner and Piccadilly Circus, but the traffic there is "fancy" traffic compared with what we get at the Elephant and Castle. The two kinds might be described as first-class and second-class traffic. We get a great amount of industrial and other heavy traffic, such as buses, crossing there.
The present density of traffic is bound to be increased when the new circle is made, because it will take away three convenient little tricky by-passes which are used by those who know the locality. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary has gone that way at any time, but so heavy is the traffic on what I call circle dodges that the traffic authorities

have had to put up traffic lights there to control it.
For example, people coming down Newington Butts who want to go into New Kent Road dodge the Elephant and Castle by turning down Crampton Street through Hampton Street across Walworth Road into Deacon Street and through Rodney Road into New Kent Road, where there is a lot of traffic. These are streets lined with small houses, there are children about, and there has been complaint for a long time about the pressure of traffic.
When the new circle is constructed traffic will not be able to go round through Crampton Street, so it will join the flood in the circle. There is another flood coming from the New Kent Road which wants to go back into Kennington. It will not be able to go through Deacon Street because there is to be one-way traffic there, so it will come through Elephant Road—I nearly said "Elephant's trunk"—and get into the Butts in that way. On the other side there is a similar dodge coming down through the Newington Causeway. Traffic goes through Rockingham Street and gets out into the New Kent Road in that way.
The actual appearance of the place as regards traffic will be considerably different when the traffic becomes finally channelled into the new circle. Again, the maintaining authority has submitted for the consideration of the Minister—I say at once that we are sure that whatever we put forward will receive sympathetic and careful consideration, so I do not feel we are pushing against any hostility in this matter—the difficulty of traffic restriction. If we use inferior material, which is what we consider it to be, then the road will need to be resurfaced more frequently than would be the case with the more expensive material. This will mean delay. It will mean a long line of vehicles waiting, it will mean a waste of petrol, it will mean a waste of time. There will be the cost of police control and loss of the control of temper by the people involved in the delays.
It has been hinted that the delays could be overcome by doing the maintenance work at night. That sounds all right, but night work and weekend work costs more. Again, it is wrong that the


borough council should be called upon to meet this heavy, and what we think unnecessarily frequent, cost of road maintenance because of traffic which is not our traffic. It is the traffic of Greater London that uses this place, going to and fro on its lawful occasions. So it is unfair to make the borough council pay those charges. At the same time there would be no objection on the part of the borough council to meeting them if the construction work is done in a way which they think would be the best in the long run.
One other point the Minister mentioned was that it was better to leave this to the L.C.C., which is the authority constructing the roads. I do not want to throw any stones at the L.C.C. but I can understand them agreeing to a smaller construction charge if the borough council is prepared to bear the comparatively heavy cost of maintenance later.
The second point in the Minister's argument to which I draw attention is one which I assure him has given some little concern to borough engineers. I know it was an answer given to a supplementary question and I do not think it means, or was intended to mean, what it could be argued to mean. The Minister said, on the question of danger:
… one disadvantage about the type the Southwark Borough Council wants is that the road becomes very highly polished and dangerous to traffic."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1958; Vol. 585, c. 411.]
In the short time I have had at my disposal I have made inquiries, but I have not yet heard of any danger to traffic. I have obtained a copy of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research Road Research Laboratory Road Note No. 5 which was published in 1948. On mastic asphalt, in the second column in page 13, I find this:
This material is used on the most heavily trafficked roads; it is able to carry successfully both pneumatic-tyred and iron-shod traffic.
There are other arguments which have some weight, especially with reference to tanks. It states:
Considerable difficulties have been experienced in devising road surfacings which, when new, will withstand the effects of turning tanks, particularly on roadways inside tank depôts. Mastic asphalt has been found to be the most generally satisfactory surfacing for this purpose, provided that a suitable composition is used. …

Later, it states when these conditions are fulfilled, the effect of a turning tank is to polish the surface. So, although it mentions polishing the surface, it says nothing about that polished surface being likely to result in danger.
I and my colleagues have made a few inquiries and we have found that mastic surfacing has been used for a long time in various parts of London—in the City of London, Westminster and Holborn, and, I believe, in Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square—and there has been no evidence of danger. We have looked at a patch of mastic asphalt which has been down for seven years in the Borough High Street in Southwark, and there is as yet no sign of polishing or of danger.
If there is danger resulting from polishing, why put down mastic asphalt, as the Ministry suggests, just at bus stops? Will there be more danger, if there is any danger at all, if the complete road is surfaced with it?
I put these points for the consideration of the Minister. In respect of the whole job costing £1½ million the difference between supplying mastic asphalt and hot rolled asphalt is £13,000, and of that the Ministry would not have to meet much more than about £10,000. If mastic asphalt were used, the job would be much more satisfactory. It would obviate a lot of trouble in taking up the road; it would avoid a great deal of subsequent delay and irritation. In this House we do not like using clichés, but I recall the old one about not spoiling the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar, and I should like to put to the Minister a paraphrase of that, "Do not spoil this road by using a ha'p'orth of hot rolled asphalt when you could use three-farthings' worth of mastic asphalt and make a jolly good job of it."
We have had years of delay and many promises. For about forty years—almost all my political life around Southwark—we have been told that we should have a reconstructed Elephant and Castle junction. It has been coming and going, coming and going. I believe that it is really here now. Let us make a decent job of it. Let us put down a road which will carry all the traffic that will use it. I urge the Ministry to make inquiries, for I believe it will be found that the use of mastic asphalt will not involve the danger of polishing and slipping. I


hope that we shall be given a road surface which will last the longest possible period and give a sense of pride and satisfaction to those who have been concerned for such a very long time about securing a reconstructed Elephant and Castle junction.

2.32 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I congratulate the right hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Isaacs) upon the eloquence that he brings to this somewhat esoteric theme of what road surface we should have at the reconstructed Elephant and Castle junction. I know that he has been interested in this matter for some time. Indeed, his persistence seems to be well associated with the name of the junction.
I have prepared myself to reply to him by making some research into the matter. I find that the relative merits of mastic asphalt and hot rolled asphalt are very delicately balanced. There is extremely little in it. I can confirm a great deal of what the right hon. Gentleman said as being correct, but I will add just a few details which may help to fill in the picture.
The reconstruction of the junction with the new double roundabout will in total cost nearly £1½ million, and the Ministry is giving a grant to it of over £1 million. I am very glad that it falls to us in our big road programme to make possible this very badly needed improvement. I know the junction. I know how very bad it is now. The various little highways and byways by which one has been able to get round it have all been progressively dealt with by the police for safety reasons. A real job badly needs doing, and I am very glad that it is now going ahead.
It is true that the extra cost of the mastic asphalt would be only £13,000, a small figure in comparison with the very big total cost. What we have decided to do is to put down a mastic asphalt surface only for the bus bays, where the greatest strain will come, and that will cost an extra £1,000. As to the rest of the surface, we still do not feel that mastic asphalt would be justified.
I should like to give a short account of the pros and cons of the two surfaces. Mastic asphalt is laid by hand in a

semi-molten condition. One sometimes sees it being laid at very important junctions in London when large lumps of tar-like stuff are brought along and put into a boiler where they are boiled up and made into a suitable mixture which is discharged in a molten condition on to the ground. It is then spread by means of trowels. The spreading of it is a lengthy, laborious business. It means—here is an important practical disadvantage—that the process of laying mastic asphalt, because it takes so much longer, requires a far greater period of occupation for surfacing work.
The advantage is that it gives a very tough surface, the toughest surface possible, a very long-wearing surface with a life of fifteen to twenty years. We use it for very heavy traffic conditions, especially where there is heavy turning.
Mastic asphalt has the further disadvantage that when the time comes for resurfacing it is again a very laborious job to break it up. It cannot be broken up by a machine as the other type of surface is broken up by putting a burning machine over it. The mastic asphalt surface has to be broken up by hand drill, again a long, laborious process requiring longer road occupation.
Having been put down, the mastic asphalt surface is given a non-skid surface—the condition in which we see it and use it—provided by a coating of chippings which is then roiled in on top of the mastic asphalt. That gives the finished article.
The hot rolled asphalt is laid by a machine called the Barber-Greene machine, some of which I expect we have all seen about the roads. It operates very quickly indeed putting down the surface in 10 ft. strips. The road occupation required for surfacing is remarkably short. It has the advantage to which I have already referred, that when the time for resurfacing conies along it can be burnt off quickly. Once again, the road occupation time is short.
The life of hot rolled asphalt is ten to fifteen years, given conditions comparable with those in which mastic asphalt is used. Therefore, on average there is about a five-year difference between the two surfaces. Hot rolled asphalt is given exactly the same surface finish by means of a coat of chippings


rolled in on top in order to provide a non-skid surface. Therefore, both surfaces finally look exactly the same.
I should like to deal with the query raised by the right hon. Gentleman on the point of skidding, which was referred to by my right hon. Friend in answer to a supplementary question. It is a slightly complex one and, I think, easily misunderstood in the process of answering Questions at Question Time. The point is that mastic asphalt tends in the latter part of its life to give a surface more prone to skidding for the very simple reason that it is down several years longer than the hot rolled asphalt and, therefore, the non-skid surface of chippings has naturally worn down more because it has been down for more years. In the final years of the life of a mastic asphalt surface, the non-skid surface of chip-pings has probably been worn smooth.

Mr. Isaacs: Does the hon. Gentleman have any experience? Have any roads in London been down long enough for them to come to the end of the life of mastic asphalt, for example?

Mr. Nugent: Yes, and that is what happens. I am not saying that this is very serious, but it is an explanation and it is obvious that it would be bound to happen.
The chipping surface, which is put there to prevent skidding, naturally becomes more worn the longer it stays down. Where we have put it down at bus stops, it is less serious in that respect, because buses are not turning, but pulling up straight. The great advantage of the mastic asphalt surfaces is that being rather tougher than the hot rolled asphalt surfaces, they can stand more heavy turning movements and that type of surface has been somewhat reserved for areas where turning traffic is specially heavy, turning traffic rather than ordinary running traffic. That also goes for stopping traffic, as at bus stops.
In a word, the pros and cons are that a mastic surface has the advantage of a longer life of nearly five years. Unfortunately, very few surfaces are allowed to run their full life in London, because all too often one of the statutory undertakers comes along and wants to pull up the road. If one can be sure when the road is put down that it will last for ten

years, one is doing well. To hope to keep it down for fifteen or twenty years is optimistic.
Against mastic asphalt is the fact that it is rather expensive. I agree that £13,000 is not a large sum in the context of £1½ million, but it is substantial and it has the disadvantage, which should not be overlooked, of longer road occupation being required at times of surfacing and resurfacing.
The traffic figure for the Elephant and Castle is 49,000 vehicles a day. It is a very busy traffic junction, but although the right hon. Gentleman thought that the traffic at Hyde Park Corner was more the "fancy pants" style, it is nearly twice as heavy at 91,000 vehicles per day and many of those vehicles are commercial. I dare say that the proportion of commercial to private vehicles may be a little higher at the Elephant and Castle, but, in total, Hyde Park Corner is by far the busiest junction in London.
We felt that we ought to have as near a basis of comparison as possible, and we compared the traffic at Vauxhall Cross with that at the Elephant and Castle. The two are very comparable. The volume of traffic at Vauxhall Cross is slightly higher than at the Elephant and Castle, being 57,000 vehicles per day. I should have thought that there was quite as much commercial traffic and that the amount of turning was rather more than it will be at the reconstructed Elephant and Castle. We put down hot rolled asphalt at Vauxhall Cross in 1953, and there are no signs of distortion or strain at present. That is strong evidence to confirm that hot rolled asphalt is suitable for the Elephant and Castle.
It is true, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that mastic asphalt has been used in some places in London. It seems to go in fashions. It has been very much out of favour until recently. In the last year or so, it has been returning to favour. The reasons which I have mentioned, the laborious business of laying and resurfacing and so on, have been a deterrent in the past. Our general practice has been not to put down new mastic surfaces, except where they have been put before, unless conditions are materially changing. That is a fairly sensible policy to follow.
I can certainly assure the right hon. Gentleman that we look at each case on


its merits. Our engineers looked at this carefully. We also appreciate that borough councils, as the future highway authorities, have a very strong interest in future maintenance costs. The more they can get the development authority, that is the L.C.C., to pay in putting down the surface with the longest possible life, the better it will be for them.
We feel that we must hold a reasonable balance between the two interests. I accept what the right hon. Gentleman said about the L.C.C. and its original proposal, that it should be a hot rolled asphalt surface, and that afterwards, when Southwark came along with its views, the L.C.C. stepped aside in a neutral fashion. I can roundly assure the right hon. Gentleman that the surface which we shall put down can carry the traffic which will go round that junction. We should not hesitate to spend a few thousand pounds more if we thought that that was needed. We are committing ourselves to huge sums of money in order to make this a really first-class job and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that what we are putting down will be fully adequate to carry the very heavy traffic at the junction.
If I may suggest it in this context, we ought to stick to either of the surfaces. The decision which is being taken is sound and I hope that after my explanation the right hon. Gentleman will agree that the balance between the two surfaces is very narrow and that we are right to stick to the one on which we have decided.

Mr. Isaacs: I am grateful for all the facts and figures which the hon. Gentleman has given. They will, I assure him, be considered by the maintenance authority, which may perhaps find some comfort in what he has said.

BUS SERVICES (RURAL AREAS)

2.47 p.m.

Mr. W. F. Deedes: I want to divert the attention of the House and of my hon. Friend from what is going on at the Elephant and Castle roads, to what is happening with some old Kent roads, and a great many other roads as well. I want to call attention to the progressive deterioration of our rural transport system, which is causing increasing alarm. I am sorry to bring my hon. Friend to the Box for the third time on a Maundy Thursday, but he will accept that this is a situation which requires urgent discussion, and it is one about which his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport shares our anxiety.
The evidence is beyond dispute and I know that my hon. Friend will not seek to dispute it. Not only in my part of South-East England, but all over the country, almost without exception, there is now a relentless cut of rural bus services. A series of cuts have been occurring in remoter parts for a long time. The process is now accelerating. I shall give two local examples of how we in East Kent are affected. I shall quote what has been done by the two major bus companies in that area.
The East Kent Road Car Company Limited has reduced its country mileage from 8½ million miles in 1953, to 8 million in 1958, a reduction of 6·6 per cent., and the likely cuts in 1959 will be a further ½ million miles—all those in round figures. The Maidstone and District Motor Services Limited states that the estimated cut in rural mileage in 1958, compared with 1957, is 1,143,000, or 6·8 per cent., while the estimated further cut in 1959 is 2½ million miles, or 21·7 per cent. of the 1957 figure. That Company goes on to say:
The cuts made so far have been made either in frequency or by withdrawal on certain days of the week, but it is now no longer possible to avoid the complete withdrawal from certain villages and areas, and it is regretted that the first of those to suffer in our proposed programmes are …
and it goes on to name four villages.
One of those villages, Westwell, is in my constituency and I received a petition signed, I suppose, by the majority of the


inhabitants. This comment could be made by villages all over rural England:
Ours is an agricultural village and if the bus service is discontinued, it will completely disrupt the life of the village and make it impossible for families with children and old people to go out at all.
In support of that statement, I would point out that the Clerk of the West Ashford Rural District Council wrote a letter to the Chancellor, and sent me a copy, the relevant extract of which reads as follows:
The Maidstone and District Bus Company have informed me that this is only the beginning, and that unless there is a reversal of the present trend, further bus services will also have to be withdrawn. It is quite possible that in a short time eight villages out of twelve in my Council's area will have no means of bus transport.
That is from a home county, and not one of the remoter districts in the Midlands, the north or the west.
Many parts of rural England are now facing an isolation which they have not previously experienced since the advent of the internal combustion engine. If it were not tragic it would be a comic footnote to modern progress. The time is approaching when thousands of villages will have no services at all. I know that my hon. Friend accepts the fact that this is not simply a grievous social inconvenience; it is affecting the supply of agricultural labour and the mobility of all forms of labour, creating real difficulties for the housewives and acute distress to the old, infirm and sick, and is tending to disrupt the whole balance of urban and rural England, to maintain which Governments have spent hundreds of millions of pounds since the war.
In order that hon. Members should fully appreciate the economics of the matter, it is necessary that I should say a word about the new shape of our rural economy. Our villages are no longer self-contained units. Many villagers travel to and from the nearest town, where they work in factories and workshops. That is the pattern of the second cycle in the Industrial Revolution; it is a happier footnote to Goldsmith. I shall not labour this outline unduly because it is known and accepted, and it may be that other hon. Members can testify to it from their own experience.
The causes too are generally agreed. Naturally, the bus companies put the fuel tax at the top of the list, and it is incon-

testably a major factor. I am not asking my hon. Friend to comment about it today, because I know that he cannot. We all appreciate its relationship to the forthcoming Budget. But even when it is set in perspective with the other factors the fuel tax remains a very substantial issue, and cannot be brushed aside even ten days before the Chancellor's appearance to present his Budget.
I know that my hon. Friend worked very closely with the present Chancellor of the Exchequer when he was in the Ministry of Agriculture, and he will be aware that his right hon. Friend holds the conviction—and he is not alone in this—that in order to preserve the prosperity of the countryside and its social balance it is our duty to provide houses, education, electricity, water, drainage and other amenities. Towards that end we have done a very great deal since the war. Those amenities are all factors which weigh in the minds of women. They are taken into account by the prospective countryman's bride, who is biologically indispensable to the future of the countryside, and they thus bear upon the future population of the countryside, and its health and life.
It is tragic that the work which is being done to give the countryside a share of modern amenities should now be threatened by a collapse of the transport system, and I would ask my hon. Friend just to whisper in the Chancellor's ear to this effect during the Recess.
The fuel tax amounts to 3d. a mile, which is about 10 per cent. or even 15 per cent. of operating costs. It turns an uneconomic service into a heavily losing one, a service which is just balancing into a losing one, and takes the profit out of services which ought to be more than balancing their losses. In a sentence, it reduces the number of swings which all transport operators have to balance against their roundabouts, it being well known that all operators run a number of losing services to help the remoter areas, and must redress the balance by means of their more profitable services.
Important though it is, the fuel tax is not the only—

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is not entitled to talk about the fuel tax on the Adjournment. That is a matter for legislation, and the Finance Bill.

Mr. Deedes: I accept your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I am now moving on to other factors. The removal of the fuel tax would not solve the problem. A new factor is the immense increase in private transport, in the form of cars, cycles and scooters, which have made independent hundreds and thousands of former bus passengers—and not only them, but a great many of their friends, co-workers and others, whom they are always glad to help with lifts to and from work. That process will inevitably continue. While it helps the problem for many, in a most agreeable way, it enormously increases the problem for a great many others.
My right hon. Friend the Minister thinks that television is a factor in this process, and it probably is. It has enormously reduced evening traffic, and so the profitability of evening services. People now tend to stay at home instead of going out for their entertainment. Further, we have the familiar inflationary story of rising costs, higher wages and fares, and fewer passengers. For some time now the bus companies have been meeting passenger resistance. Most of them are finding that a rise in fares is a mere palliative, because the loss of revenue through falling passenger traffic is greater than the increased revenue of higher fares.
The Minister and I know that there is no single solution; that no one stroke will solve the problem; but I should like to refer to one or two strokes which can be applied with a little more vigour. First, there should be a frank admission of the seriousness of the problem, and no glossing over it. It should be made clear that the countryside is threatened with a situation which would be economically disastrous for the country.
Secondly, it should be made clear that the solution does not lie wholly within the reach of the Minister or any member of the Government. Accepting all that is said about fuel tax, difficulties beyond their control, and so on, the fact remains that some transport undertakings are not facing their difficulties imaginatively. They should be woken up, and given some fresh ideas. They should experiment and drop some of their old-fashioned inhibitions. There must be a readiness among the larger undertakings to try what their boards of directors have been saying for years and years will not

work. The substance of that observation is that some small operators have proved that clever administration can help in spite of all the difficulties which are beyond their control.
Thirdly, the British Transport Commission must take a bigger share of responsibility. It is not good enough for it to discontinue thousands of miles of branch lines and then oppose any step which would give its road rivals a lesser handicap. I do not want my hon. Friend to give an immediate reply. But I would like him to consider whether there could be a revival of an agreement which previously existed, to the effect that where a local bus company was willing to fill the gap created by the closing of a branch line the Commission expressed a willingness to pay any deficit—based upon audited accounts—which arose from that service, so that the bus service exactly balanced as to profit and loss. The bus company thereby did not lose, and the Commission paid considerably less than the branch line would have cost it. There must there, I think, be some germ of an idea which would help what is really an unacceptable position. If branch lines are cut, it means that bus services will be subsequently withdrawn.
Fourthly, it is said that a small vehicle plays a major part in this matter. I find that a technical problem on which I am not fitted to comment. It is true that in some cases the small bus could make a contribution to certain areas. There are operators who find that at peak hours they require all the machinery on which they can lay their hands and that for the rest of the day the larger buses run at a loss.
I think it might be possible for the Minister to offer a little more guidance on the type, size and methods of running smaller buses based on the experience of others. Perhaps we might hear a little more on those lines.
Fifthly, I think that the Minister ought to try to stir the interest of the Ministry of Education. There is a great deal of rural transport at peak hours for the purpose of moving school children away from their villages to the grammar and secondary modern schools elsewhere. This is a new and developing situation. This traffic should be reviewed. Is the financial basis sound? Is there a tendency for education to get an invisible subsidy through this service?
Sixthly, are the Traffic Commissioners and licensing authorities really facing the situation realistically? Like some operators, I think that their arteries tend to harden. I know the argument about balancing the big operator with the small operator. The big operator has to balance the rough with the smooth, and the small operator cannot be allowed to collar too much of the smooth.
I know that the Minister is countenancing a more flexible attitude regarding the standard of fitness required of some vehicles. I think we should consider whether in the light of this very urgent situation there are some other Regulations which should be reviewed.
I am sorry, in a way, that this debate should have taken place just when there is a fresh shadow being thrown over rural transport problems by events outside. I do not think that anyone should comment on that fact, except in a general sense. It is very natural that, exasperated by declining services, rural passengers should adopt a rather hostile attitude towards their local transport companies. That is quite understandable. In some of the circumstances, I think that their moderation is commendable; but they really will have to realise that they are not rival parties in the matter.
The passengers and the bus companies will sink or swim together, and I would say that something of that sort goes for the two parties concerned in the road transport industry. They are occupying not a sinking ship, but a ship which is at the moment by no means making water very well. There is a remorseless trend not only for fewer passengers to be carried, but for fewer buses to be needed and for fewer services. In the long run, that must mean fewer drivers and conductors.
It is manifest that, all other considerations apart, in the long run the road transport industry is going to contract. The development of private transport is going to tip the scales, whatever the Chancellor does. The passengers, the operators, the bus men and, indeed, the Government, ought to perceive realistically what we are up against. They ought to realise that it is not merely a plaint from a few disgruntled people who have lost their local bus service, but the beginning of a major social situation. Having considered the matter realistically, they should weigh it up and base their

actions accordingly. I hope that this small debate may have contributed something to their line of thought.

3.5 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Houghton: I observe, Mr. Speaker, that no one on these benches is trying to catch your eye at the moment. Therefore, it may be suitable for me to say a few words in encouragement of the hon. Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes), because I happen to represent the very scattered constituency of Sowerby in the West Riding of Yorkshire where, incidentally, there is a good deal of uphill work and also very uncertain climatic conditions, both of which add considerably to the difficulties and expense of passenger transport.
This matter is certainly a problem. There can be no doubt about it. All over the country changes are taking place in local bus facilities, which add up for the community as a whole to quite a considerable withdrawal of transport services that it has enjoyed up till now.
When I heard the hon. Member for Ashford refer to the fuel tax, my eagerness to take part in the debate grew, but, after hearing your discouraging intervention, Mr. Speaker, I realised that I must not follow the hon. Gentleman in that matter. But perhaps I can at least endorse the hon. Gentleman's request to the Parliamentary Secretary to whisper in the Chancellor's ear, should he get the opportunity, during the Easter Recess. I will not tell him what to say. He may have to whisper loudly, because I understand that his right hon. Friend is going for a motor tour this Easter. He is going round and about as an ordinary motorist to look and see.
I do not wish the right hon. Gentleman any harm. Indeed, my affection for him grew when I was with him on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's tour of India and Pakistan, and when his anxieties were far fewer than they are today. But if the right hon. Gentleman's car breaks down, then I hope that he will have to try to catch a country bus. He will then realise that they are not as frequent as perhaps he thinks, and that may lead him to certain conclusions a week next Tuesday.
As the hon. Member for Ashford said, social changes of profound importance to our way of life are taking place in all


sorts of directions at the present time. This is not the only one. I think that the time is probably coming when it will be necessary for the Government to carry out a survey to ascertain what is happening throughout the country as a whole and to see what remedies can be found. Undoubtedly, the increased use of the private car and the advent of television, which is keeping many people at home, are both having their effect on the use of passenger transport. There is, of course, a limit to the extent to which the profitable routes can subsidise the uneconomic ones, and I believe this to be largely a clue to the present difficulties.
That brings me to another point which was mentioned in the course of evidence given to the tribunal recently in connection with pay claims in the transport industry. It is the curious attitude of the public towards the cost of transport. There seems to be a strong resistance to even small increases of passenger fares of all kinds, though one feels that the public will swallow with much less feeling price increases in other less essential directions.
Why is that, I wonder. It is a psychological problem of some kind, I think. Whether it is that, on the whole, public transport takes people to work and that one is not as excited as all that about being taken to work, I do not know. Many of the country routes are for pleasure, too. Indeed, many of the complaints made about the withdrawal of the facilities concern the denial of the pleasure trip, because such withdrawals are mostly at non-peak times, at weekends, or of late buses and facilities of that kind, which are largely part of the leisure and excursion time of those who go by bus.
Undoubtedly, something will happen to many of our rural areas if these bus services are cut still further. I saw a headline in one of my own local papers recently, "A Dying Village." It is true that that was not wholly attributable to the withdrawal of bus services, but unless there is transport from the remote areas to the nearest centres of entertainment and cultural activity, schools and all the rest, there will be a growing reluctance to live in the countryside, because the amenities of life today are an essential part of a full and satisfactory life in the country areas.
Without taking any more of the time of the House, I wish to say that I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Ashford with great interest, and that, although it is rather fortuitous that I happened to be here at the time, as I am doing the "Week in Westminster" broadcast on Saturday, I am, at all events, aptly rewarded for my vigil this afternoon.

3.11 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Howard: I should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) in the very able speech which he has made on this subject. I will not try to follow the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton); indeed, I would not dare to do so, in view of his great experience, in any of the matters at present out of order in this debate.
I should like, however, to endorse what he said about my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and particularly what he said about how long the Chancellor might have to wait for a bus if his car were to break down. I do not know where my right hon. Friend is going next week, but if he is going to the South-West, and particularly to the part which I have the honour to represent, he will learn that in the summer there are large numbers of buses, which are filled with tourists admiring the scenery, whereas in the winter there are very few buses, on which people from the villages are struggling to get in order to go to the towns.
As my hon. Friend quite rightly said, the situation has changed today, and it is now one in which many people either wish or have to go to the towns to supply their shopping needs for the week and so on. That being the case, I must pay this tribute to the transport undertaking in the south-western area. I wrote to the company last year asking for an additional bus service, and, to support what my hon. Friend has said, I would add that the company itself was surprised to find what a success that service was. It was found that the service was so much used that the company has decided to put it on again this year; at least, I believe that it is to do so.
Apart from that, there are one or two points which I wish to put to my hon. Friend which I hope he will consider.


They have often been mentioned before, but I should like to mention them again. The first is the question of the single bus operation in a country area. As my hon. Friend will know, in France there are rural buses in all parts of the country. They are large buses operated by one man as driver who uses a device at his side whereby he can open and close the doors of the bus. He sees to it that the only door which opens is the one at his side, so that no one can get in or out of the bus without the driver checking that a ticket has been obtained. That system, of course, helps the wages side of the story.
I hope that my hon. Friend can also tell us something about the guidance given to the licensing authorities concerning applications from other bus companies. Admittedly, I know the difficulties of this problem, and about taking the rough with the smooth, about which my hon. Friend spoke, but there are many areas in which a small operator might use a smaller bus, which would not be suitable in busier areas, but which might be very suitable for country areas. I do not know; perhaps my hon. Friend can tell us about that.
My hon. Friend mentioned the question of disused branch railway lines. It may be that his idea is a very good one, but if it cannot be adopted, why cannot the Transport Commission do what, again, has been done in France for many years? I am referring to the inexpensive type of bus fitted with railway wheels so as to be capable of running on railway tracks. We have discussed this matter with the Transport Commission, but the answer always is that this is not an economic proposition. The Commission's idea of what is wanted in this case is far too elaborate.
The Commission wish to put in buses with plush seats, fitted with photographs of beauty spots, mirrors, and all the rest, but what we are concerned with is the kind of bus with tubular seats with rexine covers, a diesel engine at one end and one man to open and shut the doors for people getting in and out. This type of bus would be far cheaper in construction and would serve the purpose of these branch lines on which it is not economical to run an ordinary train with two or three

coaches, an engine and all the rest—and probably empty.
I should now like to mention a point which my hon. Friend made about school buses, particularly as concerning my own part of the country. In the area round The Lizard, we have buses going round the villages collecting children to bring them to school and taking them back in the afternoon. Would it be possible to get in touch with the education authority to find out whether parents could not be allowed to travel on such buses as well? It is surely important to kill two birds with one stone, and it would not be such a great cost to the local authority, which might even be able to get a better contract. It would mean that the parents would be able to go with the children, and, in some cases, it would surely be a very good way of producing transport to take them to the towns and bring them back.
Whatever the answer may be, I agree with my hon. Friend this debate is most useful. As the hon. Gentleman opposite said, this is a very real social problem in the countryside. Whatever we may say about television and other things, the conditions of the people who live in the remote country areas are nothing like those of people who live even in a small country town. We are always hearing about the difficulty of recruiting agricultural labour and of keeping people in the remote areas. I am sure that this problem of the local buses is one of the most important and central parts of that problem, and I hope that this short debate will do something to help to put that situation right.

3.19 p.m.

Mr. Rupert Speir: Everyone who lives in rural Britain will be glad that the House, before it rises for the Easter Recess, has found time to turn the limelight on the very serious problem of rural transport. I know that all who live in the countryside will be extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for having raised it.
This is a subject which is of vital importance for the survival of the countryside. I have myself raised this matter on the Floor of the House often during the past six years, and I will not detain the House now by going over old ground.


It is not necessary to do so, because anyone with knowledge of this subject must realise the gravity of the situation. It just cannot be disputed.
When the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) suggested that the Government might perhaps undertake a survey of the problem, I felt that I should draw his attention to the fact that, where Northumberland is concerned, the Rural Community Council there, encouraged by the Ministry of Transport, recently undertook a survey and published a most interesting, but most gloomy, report on the subject. There really is no need to emphasise the gravity of the problem.
Furthermore, no one would deny that unless urgent action is taken, the situation will deteriorate still further, and that soon we shall be faced with a complete collapse of public transport facilities in the rural areas. The Minister must know the situation, for he has all the facts and figures before him, and they tell a very alarming story.
I know quite well from previous debates on this subject that both the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are very sympathetic. They have done what they can by way of influencing the Traffic Commissioners and the licensing authorities to see that, wherever possible, the remunerative services carry the un-remunerative ones. They have arranged also for regulations to be altered so that smaller buses can be provided.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) drew attention to the position in France, where there are buses operated by one man. That is so in this country, too, in the rural areas, but the Minister must realise that these measures are mere palliatives. We have been tinkering with the problem so far and merely touching its fringe. Meanwhile, costs have been rising and receipts have been going down. More and more buses are not paying their way.
The bigger operators, of course, are able to offset their losses on un-remunerative routes by the profits made in the urban or suburban areas, but for the small man this state of affairs means death. More and more buses are being withdrawn in the remoter areas and more and more villages are becoming isolated. When I say "isolated", I mean that they are entirely without public transport facilities. Unless prompt action is taken,

it is certain that many more villages will be isolated in the near future.
All this is common knowledge. The facts cannot be disputed. What is not so clear is the action that the Government propose to take. In the past, the Government have opposed any subsidy for rural transport and I can see that there are powerful arguments against the introduction of a new form of subsidy. But it does not make sense to us that electricity, water, sewerage, telephones and a host of other services in rural areas should be subsidised while transport is left to flounder. If we are not to have rural transport subsidised, at least do not let it be penalised, as it is today, by a very heavy burden of taxation.
I realise that here I am on dangerous ground and that I cannot pursue that argument in this particular debate. I will, therefore, do no more than draw attention to the conclusions reached in the report of the Northumberland Rural Community Council. It makes clear that although the removal of the fuel tax would not solve the problem, it would ease the situation and might lead to some of the buses remaining in service which otherwise would be taken off the roads.
I say to the Government that the countryside demands urgent action on their part. If the will is there, I believe that a solution may be found. Results are demanded, not excuses. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) is present. He is often referred to as a "Suez rebel". I warn the Government that the ranks of the rebels will soon be joined by a "transport rebel" if prompt action is not taken. I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will convey the message suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford to the Chancellor, and that action will be taken, and taken soon.

3.27 p.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I apologise to the House for coming into this debate rather late. I know that it is not usual for an hon. Member to contribute to a debate under such circumstances, but my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) began earlier than was anticipated. I had the privilege of listening to part of his speech, to which tributes have been


made from hon. Members on both sides of the House, and I had the advantage of knowing in advance what he proposed to say.
I realise that legislation cannot be discussed during an Adjournment debate, nor can it be pleaded for. But I think I shall be in order in referring to what in my view, is the chief stumbling block in the matter of rural transport, which is Section 72 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930. I remember the time after the 1914–18 War when officers and men de-mobilised from the Services rushed to provide urban and rural transport. They started to run little buses up and down the lanes and roads. Many of them went bankrupt.
Because their working hours were long and there were so many accidents, and because of the internecine competition that took place, the right hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), in the famous Road Traffic Act of 1930, completely transformed the system of road vehicle licensing to the system which we have in operation today. The architect of our present misfortunes in the rural areas is really the right hon. Member himself. I regret to say that no Government since the war has had the courage to take cognisance—I must not say more than that—of that Section of the Act and amend it.
It is the onus of proof that is wrong today. It is impossible to find a road traffic commissioner who is prepared to allow an applicant to come on roads which, in the ordinary sense of the word, in his discretion, are adequately served. I am not making a plea for the Government to introduce legislation, I am not entitled to do so in this Adjournment debate. But the real trouble is the wording of Section 72 of that Act, and the things which traffic commissioners have to take into account before they can allow a young and enterprising man or firm to start up a bus service which would provide a fair and adequate service in the countryside. The Commissioners have to take into account
the extent … to which the needs of the proposed routes or any of them are already adequately served.
They have to take into account
the extent to which the proposed service is necessary or desirable in the public interest"—

whatever that may mean—giving the widest possible discretion to the traffic commissioners to leave things exactly as they are. They have to
take into consideration any representations which may be made by persons who are already providing transport facilities along or near to the routes or any part thereof or by any local authority in whose area any of the routes or any part of any of the routes is situated.
The result is that an overwhelming weight of evidence against the applicant is produced by the present providers of transport and all the other public authorities appropriate to that Section of the Act, should he present himself before the traffic commissioners. Coming events cast their shadows before: there is not to be found in these days a man of sufficient resources, energy and determination, except in isolated cases, who is prepared to go through the racket, because it is so formidable and unpleasant.
The Government really must take this matter into account and cause the onus of proof of consumer need to be shifted from the applicant to the present provider of the service. Let the people come along with their small buses, their single conductor-driver vehicles, with a price schedule and with prospects of being able to serve the needs of the villagers at fixed times. Let them stand before the commissioners and be given the benefit of the doubt at the beginning, and then let the traffic commissioners take into account the representations that may be made against them. If the onus of proof can be shifted in that way, we can, without going back to those unhappy days of 1921–30, again provide decent rural transport at cheap prices.
In my constituency and just outside it a branch line has recently been discontinued. There is the greatest possible dissatisfaction among my constituents at the enormously high prices they now have to pay for transport into Weymouth or Dorchester. I regret to say that the only service which is now offered is by an organisation called the Southern National Omnibus Company, which is an offshoot of the British Transport Commission. It is one of its great bus companies, partly owned by the Commission and partly by some other concern. It is in a completely monopolistic position upon the routes. No sooner was the branch line discontinued than the


prices of fares began to go up because there was no longer the competition offered by the railways. That is the situation with which my constituents are faced.
As they no longer have the railway they must, if they do not own a car, club together and hire a taxi, use a motor cycle or bicycle, or walk. In this day and age, when the Conservative Party is, thankfully, returning, in many fields of industry and commerce, to competition and, one hopes, to reductions in prices, it is nothing short of disastrous that in this aspect of public life a service of the greatest possible importance to the lives and livelihood of our constituents should be neglected.
I urge upon my hon. Friend that he discuss with the Minister of Transport the possibility of making the traffic commissioners pay due attention to the binding stricture upon this aspect of our national life, and make proposals for the next Session of Parliament.

3.34 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. G. R. H. Nugent): I should like to join in the praise which has been given to my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) for introducing this subject, and for doing it—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): The Minister has already spoken and can speak again only with the leave of the House.

Mr. Nugent: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I beg to ask leave of the House that I may speak again. I have been speaking so many times today that I am sure you will understand, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that one can easily forget to ask for permission.
When my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford regretted that I had to be brought to the Box again on Maundy Thursday I wondered whether holding the position of Joint Parliamentary Secretary would qualify me for making an application for Maundy money. I think probably not.
I have had the pleasure of listening to a very interesting debate, admirably introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford. He made a most eloquent speech on the evils of what I must

admit is the rapidly deteriorating position of rural bus services.
As a countryman, I sympathise with the things which my hon. Friend said so well, because I realise the effect which the present situation is having on the life of the village. The life of the village suffers. Moreover, I am convinced that the countryman makes an essential contribution to our national life. He has something to give to our national life which we simply cannot do without, and anything which weakens the enjoyment and the value of living in the countryside is of concern to us all. For some years I was concerned with agricultural policy, in the Ministry of Agriculture, with seeing that our farmers got an adequate living from their farms and encouraging them to achieve full production, and I am, naturally, all the more concerned that we should do anything we can to help in this matter. There is, however, no simple solution to the problem.
The figures which my hon. Friend gave of the reduction in services in Kent were very worrying. I believe that his figure for the Maidstone Company was a prediction that in 1959 it would see a reduction of over 20 per cent. of its rural services and that the East Kent services would see a contraction of half a million miles. Those are very serious figures. Another aspect of the matter is that inevitably the effect snowballs. We are entering a period when the snowball is growing alarmingly big.
I see from the figures which my Department has produced for me that since 1952 the contraction in the traffic on municipal services has been 7 per cent. Although that is quite serious, it is not calamitous, but we are now running into periods when the reduction is 7 per cent. or even more in one year. Even London Transport was 4 per cent. down between the second half of 1956 and the second half of 1957. I do not doubt that other private operators' figures are moving the same way.
The principal figures in the picture are those showing the increase in the number of motor cars and motor-cycles. From 1954 to 1957 the number of motor cars has increased from 3·1 million to 4·1 million and the number of motorcycles, mostly of the scooter type, has increased from 158,000 in 1951 to about 400,000 in 1957. As hon. Members


know, the number of registrations of motor vehicles on the roads is over half a million higher this year than last year. This is going very fast, and my own guess is that the increase in what is called the moped, the light motor-cycle, is accelerating very rapidly. Everyone of these probably means a direct loss to public transport.
Television figures were also mentioned. Since 1952, the number of television sets in the country has increased from 2 million to 9 million. That means fewer visits to the cinemas and fewer visits to the towns for other sources of entertainment. One point which has not been mentioned is the increase in the number of mobile shops. This is another cause of the snowball. Because housewives cannot get into the towns to shop, because the bus service is not good, an enterprising trader sees the opportunity to take a mobile shop around. The shop travels from house to house, and the few housewives who were using the bus to go to the town, decide to shop from the mobile shop—and the receipts from bus fares go down again. That is happening on new housing estates, too.
As has been said, all this decline in receipts from fares is against a background of rising wages, costs of vehicles and costs of spares. The combined result, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford has said, is that the bus companies are finding that their profitable routes are becoming less profitable, and their unprofitable routes becoming even more unprofitable, and he has rightly said that the prospect of increasing fares does not give any simple answer.
The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) referred to the exceptional resistance there is to increased transport costs. That is a matter of fact. It occurs not only on the buses, but on the railways as well. Railway fares and bus fares have increased far less than have the prices of almost any other of the commodities, services or goods that we use in the community, yet the volume of complaint which greets any increase of these fares is deafening; in fact, deafening in the way that hon. Members would wish that the whisper I am to give to the Chancellor should be.
Bus companies have only to add a ½d. or so to a fare and the number of passengers immediately shrinks. I suppose that it is the old story of supply and demand, and that passengers are able to find alternatives somehow. Either they do not go at all, or they use a bicycle, or, if they have a car, they use it, or they get a lift in a car, or, finally, having totted the whole thing up, they decide that it is worth getting a motor-cycle, or they find some other alternative. Certainly, passengers are very sensitive indeed to any increase in fares.
There is, therefore, extremely little scope in that direction for bus companies to recoup themselves against rising costs or reduction in traffic. The traffic commissioners use their influence in every way they can to get the big operating companies to continue to work unprofitable rural routes, and, in the main, these big operating companies are extremely good—and we should record it—in carrying their share, and even more than their share, of unprofitable routes.
I often see, when I walk along the lanes at home, the local bus with nobody in it at all except the driver. He may be enjoying the country ride, but it must be very expensive indeed for the bus companies. I think that they have done their best to hang on in conditions that have been steadily deteriorating. It is very worrying now to see that they have, apparently, reached the point when they have to shed an increasing number of these services.
The hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir) referred to the Report of the Northumberland Rural Community Council, and I have, of course, read it. It is a very interesting survey of just what does happen in a very rural area where these difficulties are occurring. It gives a detailed survey of the structure of 13 operators, showing just how they work, what their revenue is, what passengers there are, the hours that are worked, and so on. Most of these operators are quite small.
That survey has reached the very worrying conclusion that hardly any of the small men will be in a position to replace their existing vehicles when the time comes when they must. The recommendations and general conclusions are still under consideration in my Ministry and, particularly, we have asked our


traffic commissioners for their comments on them. We will be having a conference with the traffic commissioners on this survey, so I am not able now to give a considered opinion on it. I would, however, like to express my thanks to those who did it. It is a very valuable document in this perplexing field.
Perhaps I may be allowed now to say just a word about possible remedies, as suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and others. First, there is the school bus. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. G. R. Howard) suggested that local education authorities might allow parents and others to travel in the school bus along with the children. The answer is that they can. The local education authorities are perfectly free to let parents or other adults travel in their school buses if they wish.
Of course, it is easy to get a wrong impression of what the school bus is doing. One sees it starting off with half a dozen children in it from one village, but by the time it has gone around half a dozen villages it is probably full. It is probably going on a circuitous route where other people do not want to go. It probably does not run at weekends or at holiday times. It has its limitations, but it also has its uses. It is up to the local people, when the route taken by the school bus is useful to them, to tell the county council so, and ask whether they may be allowed to travel on the school bus. I would be surprised if education authorities were not agreeable to the suggestion when there were spare places.
As to the further plea which was made by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives about the conductorless bus, the position is that vehicles with 20 or fewer passenger places in them are already allowed to proceed without a conductor. On application to the traffic commissioners, exemption from carrying a conductor may be given in the case of a bus with 26 or fewer places; about 2,480 such concessions have been granted and the number is increasing. It is evident that the bus companies are well aware of this and do make application for exemption for 26-seater vehicles whenever it is considered that this would help them in their problems.
With regard to the small bus which has been referred to, we have recently publicised the relaxation in conditions of

fitness which will make it possible for the 12-seater vehicle to qualify. I have in mind such vehicles as the Minibus, which is one of the best known. Up to date their construction and seating arrangement would not have conformed to our regulations. We have now relaxed the regulations relating to the dimensions and seating so that these 12-seater buses can conform with a few adaptations. We have not relaxed the safety requirements, but we have relaxed the seating arrangements. I should say that the Order is still before the House and it is still subject to the will of Parliament as to whether it is approved, but I rather apprehend that it will be.
The advantage of the system is that it involves a low capital cost. These vehicles are quite cheap and it is possible that somebody like the village storekeeper may decide to buy one of these vehicles to use for all kinds of purposes. He may run one passenger journey a day into the local town which would be of great convenience to everybody. I do not suppose that it would be suitable for a man wishing to operate a full-time bus service, but is might easily provide a solution to the problem of linking with the local town on a part-time basis.
One disadvantage is that the big companies are apprehensive that people will buy these Minibuses and use them only for excursion work, thus creaming off what is a paying service to the large companies and not operating stage services which do not pay so well. We do not think that that will happen; on the whole, we think that this idea might help, and after lengthy consultations we decided to adopt it.
Reference has been made to the conditions for licensing. My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford referred to the regulations imposed by the licensing authority, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) made a very strong plea for a relaxation of Section 72 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930. I do not think that their apprehensions are justified. The licensing authority certainly has to hear every application for a new bus service.
What the licensing authority is concerned to do is to see that there is a public transport service there. Sometimes he has to refuse an application for some new fare paying service which has been


started on an informal basis because what it is doing, in fact, is to abstract a few passengers from an existing operating service. As all these rural services are operating absolutely on a shoe-string now, one has only to take away one or two passengers from them and one probably sinks them altogether.
It is really essential that the licensing authority, in considering any fresh applications, should have regard to the protection of existing services. He must achieve a nice balance. I assure my noble Friend that he does it in a sympathetic and imaginative way, but his problem is not one of keeping out enterprising people who want to come in but of trying to keep in those who are still operating and doing anything he possibly can to get new people to come in and fill the gaps which keep on arising.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: What the traffic commissioner cannot take into account, of course, is the enormous number of persons who would come on to the new bus services if they were provided at cheaper rates. He can take into account only the existing service and the applicant for the service; and it looks to him, as my hon. Friend says, as if the applicant will take away from the existing service. But what the applicant is really doing is to propose something which will gather in a large number of these people in the villages who are now fixed and cannot go to market.

Mr. Nugent: I really do not think that that is so. I very much wish that it were, but it simply is not so. There are just not queues of operators waiting to come in and run services at lower rates than the present. The situation is really the other way. It is all the traffic commissioners can do to keep operators operating the existing rural services. I assure the House that our traffic commissioners are very well aware of this and are sympathetic to anybody who is starting up some sort of informal service. If they possibly can, they let him come in, so long as they are satisfied that he will not take passengers from an existing service and thereby worsen the situation for somebody else. That is the only consideration we have there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ashford asked whether the B.T.C. would be

prepared to subsidise by making a payment towards a rural bus service when a rural rail service is closed. The answer is that the Commission is always very willing to look at proposals of that kind, and, in one or two cases, it has done just that, agreeing to help a local bus service by making a payment when a rail service is closed down. But, naturally, the Commission could not undertake to do that in a general way. Heaven knows, the financial affairs of the Transport Commission are in no condition for it to hand out money right, left and centre; it has to bear its own difficulties as well. The Commission does take a quite sympathetic view of these things where it can.
As regards the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives that the B.T.C. ought to be thinking about something on the lines of a bus on railway lines, a really light vehicle, the answer is that the Commission has gone just as far as it possibly can with its latest light diesel car. A car to run on a railway line has to be very much heavier than a car to run on the road; it must, for instance, stand up to buffering. The capital cost is pretty high for even the simplest possible thing. The first shot the Commission made at it reached about £26,000; it has come down a bit on that, but the thing is still very expensive. I certainly assure the House that the Commission's policy is to try to keep these rural lines open, even to the point of carrying losses which I sometimes rather doubt that it should carry.
As regards subsidies, the Northumberland Rural Community Council had two suggestions to make, one with regard to the fuel tax, which I am not in a position to discuss. I have taken note of the suggestions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, by the hon. Member for Sowerby, by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives and by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham. I have to send this message after the Chancellor on his motor tour. If he intends to go to any district with which these hon. Members have any contact, he had better look out or he will find his car disabled in some way and no bus to carry him. I know that my right hon. Friend, being a countryman himself, is well aware of this problem. We have received most cogent representations from the bus operating companies and we have made


my right hon. Friend aware of the general problem.
I do not think that the suggestion that the small operator should be subsidised would meet the general position, because most of the rural routes are covered by big operators who balance an unprofitable rural route against a profitable urban route. We are still considering the matter and will give a final considered opinion upon it.
In conclusion, I would say that we have been able to do one or two things to help—particularly by the relaxation of the conditions of fitness which make it possible for the 12-seater to operate where it was not able to operate before. I know that we have secured the most sympathetic outlook from our traffic commissioners and have received co-operation from all the operating companies. It has been admitted on all sides that there is nothing we can do to stop this traffic. After all, this is a trend that we all welcome. It is the result of growing prosperity.
The motor car and the motor bicycle today are the property of Mr. Everyman and Mrs. Everywoman. That is admirable, and we want it to continue. It is a great blessing for the whole community, but inevitably it creates a growing gap between those who have not yet found themselves in a position to buy their own motor car or motor bicycle who still depend on rural transport and, indeed, on public transport in the towns. Our function in Government is to keep in close touch with the situation and to take such measures as we can from time to time to ameliorate harshness, and to do what we can to retain communications for particular villages which are affected, and that we certainly do.
What worries me particularly is the sort of social gap between those who have a motor car and those who have not. This did not matter when most people did not have a motor car and were able to take advantage of the public transport services, but now, when the volume of passenger traffic in certain places is not enough to support public transport, the difference between having a motor car and not having a motor car is whether one is able to go out of the village or not. That is very serious indeed, because it creates a kind of social distinction which none of us would wish to see.
I hope I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford that I am very conscious of the seriousness of this problem. We fully realise that the pace of the trend is increasing, as well as the intensity of the problems. We are continually concerned to make ameliorations where we can. We are not satisfied that we have done everything possible. We will continue to look for improvements and I shall certainly convey as loudly as I can the whisper that I have been asked to convey.

ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY BUILDINGS, BOURNEMOUTH

3.59 p.m.

Mr. John Eden: I rise to question the purchase by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority of Durley Hall Hotel and affiliated buildings in Bournemouth. Whilst I am grateful to Mr. Speaker for giving me the opportunity to speak today, I nevertheless regret the necessity for having to raise this matter in an Adjournment debate, particularly because it has kept my right hon. Friend the Paymaster-General here and already he has more than enough to bear upon his shoulders. This is adding one further burden to him.
I should not have had to raise this matter had it been possible for me to get the information I wanted by Question and Answer. It is probably hard enough in any case to get any Question on a nationalised industry past the Table. Even if one succeeds in that, invariably the questioner is given the answer that "This is a day-to-day matter" and he is politely but firmly brushed aside without any further information being given to him.
It appears to me that the activities of nationalised bodies as a whole are in danger of becoming sacrosanct and virtually beyond Parliamentary scrutiny. We are warned in friendly language that one should not pursue the question too far and that if we do, there is the danger that the chairman of the body concerned might be tempted to resign from his position of responsibility. One is asked how the chairman can be expected to run his business successfully if every and any step that he is likely to take might be the object of public cross-examination.
I agree that there must be some limitation. Nationalised concerns, however,


and the Atomic Energy Authority in particular, depend to a great extent upon public money for their resources. When the taxpayer is called upon to subsidise some especially grandiose operation, it is hardly surprising if he wishes to satisfy himself as to its necessity and justification.
There is in this case very real concern in Bournemouth and in the neighbouring constituencies, particularly in Dorset. In fact, for the past few weeks, the air has been literally filled with rumours of one kind or another. There is a general feeling that once again a Government body has managed to get away with it, at a time when private industry is being particularly hampered and restricted by the effects of the credit squeeze.
When one recalls the many examples in the past of somewhat lavish expenditure by nationalised bodies on staff accommodation and office buildings, it is hardly to be wondered at that the public are highly critical and sensitive to any hint of further extravagance.
What is the history of this purchase and what lies behind it? Before the Atomic Energy Authority came to Winfrith Heath, in Dorset, it was avowed that the Authority would do its utmost to bring trade and employment to the people of Dorset. My hon. Friends who represent constituencies in that county have informed me that they received a great number of representations directly as a consequence of the interest shown by the Authority in acquiring property in Bournemouth.
I should like to know what steps the Authority took to find suitable accommodation nearer to the site in question.
I have been told that several other properties were offered to the A.E.A. before it came to Bournemouth. In each case, had the Authority taken one of these properties, the journey to and from Winfrith Heath would have been considerably less than that which now must be done by the employees of the Authority from Bournemouth.
What made the Authority fall back upon this particular purchase? Why did it decide in the end to purchase a 96- bedroomed hotel on the seaside in Bournemouth, on one of the finest sites that Bournemouth has to offer—a well-known hotel, fully equipped, with such

pleasant amenities as a games room, even a dispense bar, a panelled dining hall and, believe it or not, a heated garage?
Who was it who advised the Authority that this was the most economical way of housing its scientists? Was it the district valuer? Was it he who was in charge of the negotiations? If so, what were his instructions before he entered into them?

Mr. Douglas Houghton: I just want to be clear. Is this living accommodation or office accommodation?

Mr. Eden: This is living accommodation, in so far as my information goes, for scientists who are employed by the Atomic Energy Authority at Winfrith Heath, and presumably they will be based in this hotel and so to carry out their work will have to go every single day a distance which is, I believe, not under 25 miles between Bournemouth and Winfrith Heath.
If it was not the district valuer, who conducted these negotiations? Perhaps it was some official of the Treasury. Did he give his approval to this purchase, and if so, on what grounds? What information did he have in coming to the conclusion that this was the best possible and most economical purchase to make? On what grounds, for example, did he decide it was necessary to buy the goodwill of the hotel? What use to the Atomic Energy Authority would be the goodwill of an hotel which was a thriving business in the town? Since the whole affair has been distinguished by an atmosphere of secrecy and urgency, could it possibly be that considerably more than the minimum figure acceptable to the vendor was paid by the Authority?
It would appear that the house-purchasing activities of the Authority do not end with this hotel. In Bournemouth, I am given to understand, a number of other similar properties have been bought by the Authority, and from the Dorchester office of the Authority recently has come a general inquiry for houses and bungalows in the Bournemouth area at a price range of between £2,000 and £4,000. This has come at a time when the whole of the housing position in Bournemouth is going through rather a changeover process as a result of the operation of the Rent Act. I think it particularly


unfortunate that the activities of the Authority should have been at this moment.
What does the Authority want with these other houses? Whom is it to house there in addition to those people it will house in the 96-bedroomed hotel? Who is in charge of the negotiations for the purchase of those other houses? What instructions has he received? Why could it not provide equally suitable accommodation much nearer to the place of work, thereby doing away with the necessity of daily travel to and fro?
One is tempted to wonder whether, in coming to Winfrith Heath at all in the first place, the Authority was tempted by the seclusion of the spot. Or was it more a case of being tempted by its proximity to the delights and attractions of Bournemouth, the leading holiday town, as we all know it to be? I do not blame it if this was the case, but at least it might have made it clear from the beginning, especially to the people of Dorset, that a large part of the employment which might have been brought to them by bringing in top-ranking scientists either to the villages or the towns or by building suitable accommodation for them would not in fact take place.
It may well be that the Authority has a good answer to all this. The Authority may be justified on grounds both of economy and of expediency in all it has done, but I take this opportunity of impressing upon my right hon. Friend that its purchase of this hotel has given rise to considerable anxiety and disquiet. It has been added to by the difficulty that is being placed, both in my way and in that of anybody else, of finding out what has taken place. I beg my right hon. Friend to set my own mind and the public mind at rest on this question.

4.11 p.m.

The Paymaster-General (Mr. Reginald Maudling): There are two questions involved here: first, the general position of the Atomic Energy Authority, and. secondly, the particular purchase. I will deal, first, with the constitutional position.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. J. Eden), who has put this matter so eloquently before the House, complained about the secrecy.

One must recognise, however, that the purpose of Parliament in establishing this Authority by the Act of 1954, as other nationalised industries have been established by Parliament, was to put these bodies, so far as is practicable and desirable, on the same footing as commercial undertakings. If any large private commercial undertaking chose to buy an hotel in Bournemouth, the matter could not possibly arise in the House of Commons. It can arise only in so far as there is Ministerial responsibility.
The normal position of the nationalised industries is that Ministers have powers of general direction, but not powers of particular direction; in other words, they cannot, in the case of transport or coal, for example, intervene in the day-to-day running of the affairs of the nationalised industry. The position of the Atomic Energy Authority is somewhat different and I will explain what it is.
In the case of the Atomic Energy Authority the governing Act provides that the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, has powers to give directions to the Authority in matters of a detailed character as well as in matters of a general character, and to that extent it is different from other nationalised industries. There was, however, a specific provision put into Section 3(3) of the 1954 Act to the effect that the Prime Minister
… shall not regard it as his duty to intervene in detail in the conduct by the authority of their affairs unless in his opinion over-riding national interests so require.
As was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal in reply to a Question on 3rd March, the Prime Minister did not consider that this was a matter in which over-riding national interests required his intervention in the day-to-day conduct by the Authority of its own affairs. I think it would be generally agreed that it would be making nonsense of the Statute and its wording to treat the purchase of a particular building as a matter in which over-riding national interests required the intervention of the Prime Minister in the conduct of the affairs of the Authority.
So the constitutional position is clear. It is that this is a matter of the type which Parliament has provided, by the Act of 1954, should be the responsibility of the Authority and not one in which the Minister concerned should intervene.


However, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister recognises that this is a matter which has aroused considerable public interest, particularly in Bournemouth, and I have been in touch with the Atomic Energy Authority. The Authority has expressed to me the desire that this matter should be made clear and has supplied me with certain information which I think the House would like to have. I think I should once again stress that in providing this information I must in no way appear to derogate from the very clear principles of the Atomic Energy Act.
Why does the Authority require this accommodation? It is establishing at Winfrith Heath a new and extremely important research establishment, the purposes of which were described to the House fairly fully when we had the Winfrith Heath Bill before us. Much as I share my hon. Friend's admiration for the attractions of Bournemouth, which are many—including golf courses, beaches and others which I know well—proximity to Bournemouth was not in any way the reason for the choice of Winfrith Heath.
Having decided to set up the new establishment and the case for urgency being very considerable—as was explained to the House when we dealt with the Winfrith Heath Bill, the main justification for the Bill and the abolition of the common rights was the very great urgency of the work to be carried out at Winfrith Heath—it is clear that the Authority had to obtain accommodation for the staff who are to work there, and also, of course, for visitors to the establishment. The flow of visitors to the Authority's establishments is a very large one. It is a very important part of the Authority's activities that it should have visitors interested in these matters, particularly from the Commonwealth, to maintain the flow of information and the sense of technical leadership that the British Authority has been able to establish.

Mr. Eden: Is it more a hostel or a living place for visitors than a living place for employees of the Authority? Will it be a place where scientists will live, or is it to accommodate visitors to Winfrith Heath?

Mr. Maudling: It is to be a hostel for the staff, but I understand that some accommodation for visitors will also be provided. The principal purpose is to provide accommodation for the staff. Large as the building is, the total number of staff accommodated will be only a very small percentage of the total staff employed at Winfrith Heath.
The Authority set about trying to find accommodation. It considered both the question of building new accommodation and the question of buying an existing building. I understand that it looked at 22 properties, 18 of which were in the County of Dorset. It also considered the possibility of building, but to build a hostel to house the number of staff involved, according even to normal Government standards, which, I think it will be generally agreed, are not very high in these matters—they are adequate but not luxurious—would have cost substantially more than the price paid for the hotel. Therefore, the Authority decided that it was better to buy this building. Of all the properties that it looked at, it was the one which met its requirements.
The question arises of how it negotiated and what price it paid. The negotiations were carried out on its behalf by the district valuer of the Inland Revenue. From discussions which I have heard in the House, I do not think he would on the whole be regarded as an official who is too generous in his assessment of the value of properties. He approved the price, and so did the Treasury. I cannot disclose the actual price paid. I am sure it would be quite wrong and contrary to any normal commercial practice to disclose the actual price paid by the Authority.
However, as there have been certain rumours about the matter I should like to say one or two things. First, the Authority purchased not only the house but also its contents, and also two adjacent houses. Secondly, there has been a story to the effect that the property was being offered at a sum of £85,000. The Authority received written assurance from the estate agent from whom the purchase was effected that at no time was the property in his books for as low a figure as £85,000. I can tell my hon. Friend, without disclosing the actual price, which would be wrong, that


the price paid was one substantially below that originally asked by the seller.
We reach the position that the Atomic Energy Authority had to find this accommodation for its staff. It looked at a large number of alternatives—I said that 22 properties were inspected—and also considered the possibility of building. It put the negotiations in the hands of the district valuer, as a result of which it bought this property at a price lower than the price initially requested and substantially lower than it would have cost it to build similar accommodation.
I feel, therefore, that the action of the Authority was entirely justified. I must once again say that I do not want to give the impression that in any way justification of these actions of this type to Parliament is within the normal compass of the Statute, because it is a day-to-day matter for the Authority. It is true that the Authority used public money, but the Atomic Energy Act requires the Authority to keep proper accounts and send them to the Comptroller and Auditor General. Those accounts are laid before the Public Accounts Committee and in that way accountability to Parliament is main-

tained, without infringing the very proper rule under which the Authority has to work, in the way that we think it should work and has been successfully working. Day-to-day Ministerial intervention in the affairs of the Authority would not be generally in the public interest. I hope that I have been able to say enough to convince my hon. Friend that some of the stories circulating about this transaction are incorrect.
Finally, I think that it is generally felt that the Atomic Energy Authority is one of the great assets of the country and that it is conducted and run by men of very great acumen and very great experience in administration and science and business matters. My hon. Friend can take it that they are not the sort of people to pay more for a property than they have to pay. They will always seek, as they have done on this occasion, the best impartial, professional advice before embarking on any transaction.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Four o'clock, till Tuesday, 15th April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House yesterday.